


We Are Made Wise

by DarkTidings



Series: Lost Deputy Collection [3]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Bonding, Guardian-Ward Relationship, Past Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Survival Training, Teen Romance, past Lori Grimes/Shane Walsh - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkTidings/pseuds/DarkTidings
Summary: "We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future." - George Bernard ShawShane and three young teenagers are cut off from the farmhouse when the walker swarm descends on the farm.
Relationships: Beth Greene/Carl Grimes, Daryl Dixon/Lori Grimes, Merle Dixon/Original Female Character(s), Shane Walsh/Juanita "Princess" Sanchez
Series: Lost Deputy Collection [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883092
Comments: 277
Kudos: 115





	1. Safe Until Daylight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This goes really AU for season 2. Extended chapter from the Bunny Farm draft.
> 
> As requested by FreddyIsComingForYou.

_"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future." - George Bernard Shaw_

Shane isn't sure how he ended up with a trio of devoted little ducklings. He's always loved Carl, and it's been a mutual admiration society between them. But Carl is a boy. He understands boys and how their minds work.

The fact that his nephew is now part of what he can only dub the Three Musketeers baffles Shane. Everywhere Carl goes nowadays, he's bookended by two very blonde little girls. 

Calling them little girls is a misnomer in a way. Both blondes are older than Carl, although it's only a matter of months or weeks. Sophia is the oldest by nearly three months, with Beth exactly two weeks older than Carl. The significance to Shane is that there are three thirteen year olds asking endless questions as he leads them through exercises designed to strengthen the muscle weakness he's still fighting.

He knows the reality of recovering from being shot, even in a faster healing area like the upper leg, is still weeks of physical therapy. Since he doesn't have a therapist, he's improvising, using exercises for recovering from damaged muscles in football. The kids just make it less boring, and it does help to teach them the kinesthetic reasoning for exercises instead of boring drills alone.

It's why they're all down in the barn, away from prying eyes. Shane doesn't mind the kids seeing when he struggles or even fails, although that's happening less often now. The adults' assessing eyes just piss him off.

The barn still bears a faint stench of decay from its time as a walker jail. That's terrifying by itself to recall, hearing gunshots from inside the barn in the middle of an afternoon two weeks ago. It got worse when his ducklings turned out to be responsible.

Beth Greene's new friends convinced her that her mother and brother were truly gone, and the determined little blonde decided she wasn't waiting on her father to do the right thing. Carl stole a gun and box of ammo from Daryl's saddlebag, and the three of them climbed into the loft of the barn.

When Rick and Daryl reached the loft, Beth was reloading under Carl's instructions, and there were already four walkers down to her inexpert shooting.

The adults helped finish what Beth started, sending Hershel Greene right off the wagon. That trip to town made life more complicated for everyone, resulting in the punk still confined to a shed on the property. No one likes Shane's opinion after Rick and Daryl returned with Randall, so he's in the barn. It's a sad statement about their group that three kids have better sense than all the adults combined.

At least they let him teach all the kids, Carol, and Andrea to shoot after the barn. It's a matter of safety that they at least understand how firearms work. Beth's early foray into sharpshooting turned out to be natural skill. She's a better shot than many of the adults here.

As they finish the last of their cool down stretches, Shane tosses water bottles to each of the kids. They all drink, sprawled on hay bales dragged in here for their comfort. It's nearing time to head back to the farmhouse, because they'll need to clean up before supper.

"Think they're all still fighting about Randall?" Carl asks, looking toward the house through the cracked open barn doors.

Beth snorts. The cynicism she developed after losing faith in her father makes Shane a little sad, remembering the bubbly kid who read aloud to him while he was stuck in bed for two days after Otis accidentally shot him. "What do you expect? Everyone wants to pretend it is still like before."

Sophia scoots over to sit next to Beth. The two girls lace their fingers together. They've been inseparable friends since Sophia's flight through the woods brought her into Otis's hunting range. The farm hand saved her from a pursuing walker and brought her to the farm for safety while he looked for her people.

Having two very outgoing friends is helping the older girl come out of her protective shell. "They'll have to make a decision eventually."

Daryl and Shane have little to say to each other on the best of days, but the redneck went out of his way to make sure Shane doesn't leave either of the girls alone anymore. The ex-deputy doesn't really need Daryl to fill in the blanks for what he's worried about.

But they and Andrea are the only three taking it completely seriously, the threat Randall and his type pose. Everyone else is responding to Dale's speeches about retaining civilized humanity. He wonders, not for the first time, if he should just take care of the problem quietly. Or he could set up an escape. No one would begrudge him shooting the little pedophile bastard then.

"That's weird." Carl's on his feet, venturing toward the doors. "I was sure everyone was at the house."

"Carl, get back from the door." Beth sounds afraid, and Shane responds quickly, snatching the boy back since he's closest.

Beth's blue eyes are wide and frightened. "Walkers."

The girl is right. They haven't been noticed yet, but those at the house have. Shane thinks the lingering walker scent might be hiding him and the kids, but nothing shields the farmhouse and the fucking gas grill they have going in the yard to cook up venison from the deer Daryl and Glenn brought back today.

Instinct tells him to call out a warning when one walker becomes three, then six, then a dozen. But shouting or shooting would draw attention to the barn and the children he has to protect. They're more important than the inattentive adults.

"Who the fuck is on watch?" he mutters. There's no one atop the RV.

It's a rhetorical question, but Sophia answers quietly. "Dale's supposed to be."

The damned old busybody is probably off trying to make sure the folks on the fence about Randall, like Glenn and Maggie, don't shift opinions. But he's left them vulnerable.

"Beth, can you lead the others to that little back door and peek to see if they're behind the barn, too?"

She nods solemnly. Once the kids are near the back, Shane tries to think of how to warn the others. Before he can just risk firing a shot, finally, someone comes out of the house. He hears the distinctive sound of a crossbow firing and knows that Daryl's going to raise the alarm.

"It's clear back here." Beth's voice is hidden under the sound of gunfire erupting from the direction of the house.

Shane hesitates, watching as defending the house draws more walkers. But the part that makes his blood run cold is Maggie Greene's panicked scream as her pale face comes under the porch light when she can't make it to the barn due to the mass of dead in the way.

"Shane! Take the kids and run!"

He doesn't hesitate. Normally, his place would be among the fighters trying to defend their safe haven. Tonight? It's getting the kids away from the herd swarming the place.

Keeping the three teens in his sight, they scurry across the open field behind the barn. They're ignored by the walkers in favor of the noise and smells further down. When they reach the treeline, he risks a look back.

The herd on the highway was so large he lost count in his estimate as he lay under the vehicle. What is advancing toward the defenders now in cars and on the porch makes that herd look small. Knowing there's no way he can help, he meets the scared yet trusting eyes of the kids.

They turn away from the swarm and run.

The uneven ground is complete hell on his not fully healed leg. Shane is limping even before they're out of range of hearing the bone chilling sounds of the biggest herd he's ever seen. Then exactly what he would fear most in trying to run across unfamiliar terrain in the dark happens.

Sophia stumbles and goes down hard. The distressed cry she makes scares him, and he kneels by her checking for injuries. There's a jagged gash in her arm, which is bleeding heavily. Shane tugs off his overshirt, folding the material and using it to apply pressure.

"Beth, keep pressure on this," he directs. The younger girl complies, adapting to the crisis well. He suspects she's helped her father in his practice from time to time. "Carl, keep watch."

As the boy draws his gun and stands protectively over them, he turns back to the injured girl. "Sophia? Is anything else hurt?" 

To her credit, scared and in pain, she isn't crying or panicking. "My ankle. I stepped on something rotten."

Shane is gentle as he examines her ankle. She's correct that her foot went through a mostly buried and rotten log, something she couldn't have seen to avoid in the near dark. It doesn't help that the poor kid is still wearing some canvas shoe that barely qualifies as footwear. 

Her ankle is bleeding sluggishly from multiple scrapes and starting to swell. He hates to do it, but the torn shoe is going to harm her foot, so he discards it. Sophia won't be walking, and the shoes are nearly useless anyway.

"Carl. Your overshirt, please?"

The boy holsters his gun long enough to strip off the red overshirt and hand it to Shane. He rips off a sleeve and uses it to bind Sophia's ankle, feeling like their time is running out. He uses the other sleeve to tie off the pressure bandage on her arm. 

"Alright, kiddo, we gotta get moving. Wrap your good arm around my shoulders when I lift you."

"You shouldn't carry me," she protests. "It'll hurt your leg."

It would be easier with her weight in his back, but he doesn't want her injuring her arm further. He doesn't give her the choice, lifting her into his arms.

She flings her good arm around his shoulders with a squeak, giving in to the inevitable that she will be carried.

"C'mon, kids. We need to find somewhere that isn't out in the open. Beth? Do you know of anywhere?"

The blonde leads the way, thinking hard. "What direction are we headed?"

Shane glances up, spotting the moon. "Northeast."

Beth grimaces. "That means we're headed into deep woods. Mostly hunting back here, no farms. There might be a cabin or two, but I wouldn't know exactly where."

Shane thinks of the herd coming out of the northwest. He wonders if they should gamble that the cattle will provide a long enough distraction. Normally, he doesn't think cattle are really prey to small numbers of walkers, not uninjured. But that many? They could overwhelm just about anything.

"What about due east?" It brings them closer to the herd if they don't change direction, which is a risk.

"Closest farm past ours is about three miles east. They were in the barn."

Shane winces at that information, but at least they know Otis cleared the house. "Alright. Aim for the moon."

By the time they reach the edge of the trees, Shane's thigh is screaming in pain. He's limping, and all three kids keep giving him worried looks. 

"Maybe we can carry her," Carl suggests. "Make a seat of our hands."

"We're almost there. I can make it that far." The bulk of the farmhouse can be seen in the distance, illuminated by moonlight.

Beth makes a happy sound. "They have one of those big wagons they use to haul bushel baskets. I can see it up at the gates."

Her pleading look is amplified by two more sets of puppy eyes, so he sighs and nods. "Guns out and ready."

Carl and Beth both advance down the lane between two fields, already showing a good awareness of their surroundings. Luckily, the odds are low that anything is out there, since the crops aren't tall enough to hide much here. Thank God it's not a corn field.

Beth snags the handle of one of those big farm wagons. Both teens set off at a run, making it back to them in record time. Shane eases Sophia into the wagon. Beth and Carl each fit a hand around the oversized handle and begin to tug.

Now that he's not focused almost completely on staying upright with Sophia's extra weight, Shane needs to plan. "Tell me about this farm."

"They were elderly, keeping the farm going with hired help. They sent the two men away when the sickness started, because their families were back home in Mexico. Otis came to check on them, and they were gone."

Beth sighs, motioning toward the fields. "This is where Maggie's been fetching extra food from. No animals left here, because she and Otis brought all their chickens to our place."

That probably helps explain why they had chickens to spare to feed the walkers in the barn, he guesses. Otis probably gathered poultry from other farms, too.

"What about the house? Did they clear out food? Would they have weapons?" The kids each have the small 22s they were given for learning to shoot, but they only have what ammo is actually in the guns. His own Glock is fully loaded, with an extra magazine next to the holster. He's the only one with a damned knife, because he hasn't convinced the kids' parents they won't slice a finger off yet.

"Maybe. I know Mr. Collins hunted, so maybe he would have a rifle. I don't remember them bringing back canned goods, just fresh produce."

"Alright. We get to the house, and I want Beth and Sophia to stay on the porch. Beth's the best shot if something comes up. Carl and I will clear the house, just to be safe. Then we lock it up and get Sophia treated."

"What about the others?" Carl asks, looking back the way they came.

"We have to count on the fact that they're smart and competent. They'll come looking for us, and if they don't, we'll go looking for them."

"Yeah, we will." Carl grins as they reach the porch.

Now Shane just has to keep them safe until daylight, when the others will track them down, since the Greenes know the area better than anyone. And if not? They'll play search and rescue themselves and find the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU Notes: Sophia and Andre live. Age-adjusted Beth to place Beth, Carl, and Sophia as the same age, 13. Shane was shot by Otis instead of Carl. Lori hasn't taken the pregnancy test yet, but Judith is Shane's. Shane and the kids eventually end up in a safe community (one I designed for the Hell series and didn't use) a few months ahead of Rick's group. The crazy wandering has a good reason: three desperate families trying to find their lost ducklings. Expect more of an Uncle Shane theme than the fatherly one of the Hell series. No Woodbury or Governor.
> 
> Pairing: Undecided for Shane, probably ultra-rare like Connie, Rosita, or Princess. Teen romance Beth/Carl. Best buddies Sophia & Beth.  
>  _Edit 28 Jan 2021: Shane/Princess, Daryl/Lori are the primary pairings. Background Glenn/Maggie, Merle/OFC, and Otis/Patricia._
> 
> Dogs: The Pomeranian Posse - Nugget, Cupcake, Max, and Wolverine.
> 
>  **M Rating does NOT reflect the teen romance of Carl/Beth, only the adult pairings**.


	2. Aerial Safe Haven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane and the kids have just enough time to doctor Sophia's injuries and find a safe place to hide before the herd arrives at their location.

Clearing the house is easy. Otis did his job in locking the place up well, but the key is hidden exactly where Beth remembered it being under a flower pot on the porch. Shane will be amused by it being hidden between the inner and outer pots of the damned cactus once the jab the stupid plant gave him heals.

He carries Sophia inside and sits her at the kitchen table. “Beth, see if you can find any first aid supplies. Carl, make sure all the windows are covered on the ground floor.” Both kids scurry off to do as asked, leaving him to peel away the improvised bandaging on Sophia’s arm.

“How bad does it hurt, one to ten, sweetheart?” 

Sophia eyes the ugly gash and swallows hard. “Six. Less than when I broke my arm, more than when I had my tonsils out.”

Shane squeezes her hand and goes to set water to boil on the stove, thanking the prior residents for being set on a propane stove instead of electric, and that someone liked tea. The tea kettle will boil - and thus cool - water much faster than a pot will. “We’re going to flush the wound as best we can with sterile water. Normally, I might just bandage it up, but if we’ve got to be on the move, you won’t be able to keep the arm immobile. So I’m going to have to do stitches somehow.”

He has to hand it to the girl for being able to make the logic leap there. “And we don’t have lidocaine.”

“No, we don’t. It’s going to hurt like hell, I’m afraid.” Shane starts checking the cabinets, feeling a bit of relief when he sees the decently stocked pantry. He’s even more relieved when he finds a bottle of vodka in the otherwise empty freezer compartment of the fridge. “This is a one time good deal, Sophia, because end of the world or not, I am not approving of a thirteen year old drinking normally.”

She giggles a little as he pours as much as he dares safely give her in the cup. “Don’t drink that just yet, in case Beth finds something actually for pain better than ibuprofen.”

Sophia nods as Carl returns. “Everything’s covered up, but some of the curtains are kind of sheer.”

“We’ll move upstairs as soon as we can then to wait for daylight.”

Beth returns to the kitchen carrying a pillowcase she’s improvised into a bag. She tips out the contents onto the table for Shane to look over. There are two prescription bottles, but he doesn’t recognize either medication. As much as he was hoping for an unfinished bottle of painkiller from old dental work or similar, it seems that’s not going to pan out.

When he nudges the cup toward Sophia, she grimaces. “This isn’t going to taste good, is it?”

“Straight alcohol is an acquired taste, I’m afraid, and unlike medicine, where they tell you to hold your nose and swallow, you do not want to do that with alcohol.”

The rest of Beth’s raid of the house bathrooms yields plenty of gauze, tape, bandages, and antibiotic cream, at least, among other standard medicine cabinet supplies. “Any dental floss in the bathroom? And would the former missus have a sewing kit anywhere? I need a good needle.”

“She’s got a whole sewing room. I’ll be right back.”

The kettle screams, so Shane takes it off the burner to cool. “Carl? Why don’t you open a few cans and get something to eat together?”

While Carl sets to work, he kneels and unwraps Sophia’s ankle next. This one will be easier, since none of the cuts are deep enough for stitches, but the girl’s definitely not going to be walking anywhere. Thankfully, Beth’s loot has a chemical ice pack, so that will come in handy.

“Are you going to pour the vodka on my cuts?” Sophia asks, leaning in to study the ankle.

“No. Stuff has to be a lot higher proof than this to be really useful. No sense in making you think your skin’s burning off if we can avoid it.”

Beth returns with a small cloth with several needles jabbed into it and a packet of thankfully unflavored dental floss.

“Grab me a shallow bowl for the needle and tweezers, please. Pour in enough of the rubbing alcohol to cover both of them so they can soak.” Shane checks the boiled water, and it’s cool enough to use. He scrubs his own hands at the sink twice over, hating what he’s about to do.

“Grab the kettle and come trickle it over Sophia’s ankle for me.” 

Beth nods, carefully rinsing the older girl’s foot, letting the excess water flow into the bucket. She halts when Shane says to, and he rechecks the ankle. None of the cuts seem to be actively bleeding, so he slathers them with antibiotic cream and bandages them up. He wraps an ace bandage in place to support the ankle and bandages, glad that the place had one like every southern home seems to collect up.

“Now’s the hard part, Sophia. Hang in there with me, okay? Even the water is going to hurt like hell.”

As Beth pours the water to irrigate the deeper wound, Sophia squirms and fights off tears. Beth doesn’t bother, her young face damp as she helps. Dirt and debris join the bloody water in the bucket, but just when Shane thinks they won’t be able to fully irrigate it with this batch of water, the water turns simply pink. He still examines the wound, not finding anything visible at least. They’ll have to risk it, since the household didn’t have any iodine. 

“Can’t you just use peroxide?” Sophia asks, looking at the brown bottle on the table. 

“Last first aid course I took said it does more harm than good. Kills the good cells along with the bacteria.”

She nods, looking apprehensive. Shane goes and washes his hands one more time, just in case. Beth puts an arm around Sophia as he begins the stitches, letting her cry into Beth’s shoulder. He makes it quick, opting for securing the wound and not avoiding scarring. One benefit of sports and law enforcement is that he’s had enough stitches to know the difference.

“All done. Seven stitches, sweetheart, and now we’ll bandage it up.”

Sophia turns teary eyes toward him and blinks, studying the arm. “They’re not all smushed together like my friend’s were.”

“No, they aren’t, but lots of little, close stitches are when they’re trying to avoid scarring. I figured you might prefer a faster job and a cool scar than a bunch done with no painkiller.” He layers on the antibiotic cream. Fewer stitches means less to take out if Hershel decides she’s better off without them, too.

“I don’t mind a scar.” 

The statement sounds so boyish that Shane grins at her as he tapes bandaging in place. “Well, you’ll definitely have a cool scar to talk about when we find your mama and this heals up.”

Carl sets bowls on the table as Beth gathers up the first aid supplies and puts them back in the pillowcase. Shane empties the bucket and washes up again. While the kids start eating, he does his own patrol of the windows, keeping an eye out. The direction change they made could put them in the path of that herd if it shifts even a little bit.

“Alright, kids. Eat up, and then I want y’all to fill up containers with water upstairs. If we have to hide and wait out any walkers, we don’t want to run any water to alert them we’re here.”

“What about going to the bathroom?” Beth asks. Shane pauses in eating Carl’s makeshift stew to point at the mop bucket he just emptied.

“Eww.” It’s a chorus from both girls, but they don’t seem actually offended by the idea.

“They have an attic here, if you’re really worried,” Beth suggests. “It’s got those stairs that drop down out of the ceiling.”

“Good thinking. Soon as we’re done eating, I want Beth to go fill up the bathtub and any water containers you can find. Carl, you go through the pantry and load up anything that can be eaten without being warmed up. Make sure you pack the can opener.”

They scarf down the food, seeming to catch his unease. While they disburse to do as directed, first he carries Sophia upstairs and sets her on the foot of a bed in a guest room. He goes back downstairs and grabs Beth’s first aid bag and the bucket and goes upstairs to find those stairs to make sure the attic is even viable. Like most attics, it’s dusty as hell, but at least it’s got a partial floor because the missus of the house stored decorations up here. He shoves those over into the area that doesn’t have a firm floor, figuring no one cares about ceiling cracks now.

One of the rooms has a set of twin beds, so he hefts both mattresses up into the attic by the time the kids converge again. Carl is practically dragging his overloaded shopping bags, looking pale.

“I saw a walker down by the woodline where we came from,” he reports.

Shane’s glad they don’t have lights to really give away their position, and that Carl’s supper concoction was all vegetables that reduces any strong scents in the house. “Here’s the rest of the plan. Carl, drag some bedding up from the room I got the twin beds in. Beth, see if you can get the water and food up the steps.”

Thank God for a Southern household needing a half dozen gallon sized pitchers for everything, because they’ll be able to get by for a day or two without having to exit the attic to dip into the water stored in the upstairs bathtub. Shane carries Sophia into the attic before he creeps down the stairs, going toward the living room to verify the sighting Carl had.

It’s just a trio of walkers now, and maybe that will be all, but he isn’t counting on it, especially in the dark. More than two stories up, if they stay quiet, they should be invisible to the damned things, and there’s no animals here to keep their attention. 

Shane does the quietest walk through he can imagine, finding the old couple’s bad weather stash in a Rubbermaid bin in the downstairs hall closet. If he can drape something over the two small attic windows to hide the lantern light, at least they won’t be huddled in the dark. Luckily, the camp lantern he finds is battery powered and not kerosene. He sets the bin at the foot of the stairs, along with both cases of bottled water, and calls for the kids to fetch it up to the attic.

In the kitchen, he gathers the bloodied scraps of shirt and douses them with bleach in the kitchen trash can. On his way back upstairs, he stops by the master, for once glad of oldtimers and their lack of gun safes. There are two hunting rifles in the gun rack over the desk in the master. Shane takes a page of Beth’s scavenging book and shucks a pillow to use the case to empty all the ammo stored in the gun rack’s drawers. Once the guns are passed up to the girls in the attic, he sends Carl up to stay, too and does one last walkthrough of the second floor. 

From the room he took the twin beds from, he can see that their initial worries are correct. The three walkers from before are halfway toward the house, but behind them, just leaving the woods, are enough to count as a herd. Shane grabs the stack of extra blankets from the closet and heads upstairs, closing the attic door behind him.

“Herd’s on its way,” he cautions the kids, and they nod, even as he snags one of the rolls of duct tape out of the supply bin. “Y’all sit on the mattresses for now and let me get these windows covered. It’ll get even darker for a few minutes, so I need to know where y’all are, okay?”

Carl joins the girls from where he’s been hovering near one of the windows, the one that faces the field the walkers are approaching from. Shane covers that one first, since it’s in the half of the attic with less actual flooring, securing the thin blanket with copious amounts of duct tape at the top and upper sides. It steals what little light the attic has, so he walks carefully down the center to reach the other window. 

There’s nothing outside this one that can be seen, so he covers it as well before allowing himself a moment to breathe a sigh of relief. “Turn the lantern on, please?” he asks, not wanting to walk in the complete dark that now envelops the attic.

It comes to light, casting the kids in that weird glow that camping lanterns always seem to have. “Everyone doing okay?”

Shane gets three barely audible affirmatives. “It’s probably going to get really hot in here, even with the vents and whirlybirds circulating air a bit. I’ll sneak the windows open some when it does, but we’ll have to be absolutely silent when I do. But don’t get overheated trying to brave it out, okay?” He honestly isn’t sure if the walkers could orient on them up this high even if they do talk, but it’s the sort of experiment he doesn’t want to try with three dependent kids.

The kids’ easy agreement gives him time to look around, and he laughs softly. Beth and Carl didn’t just grab only what he told him. Next to the mop bucket he deemed suitable for bathroom trips, there’s four rolls of toilet paper, a stack of towels and washcloths, and for some odd reason, the shower curtain. 

Beth sees him looking and grins. “If we cover it up between bathroom trips, maybe we won’t smell it as much?”

“Good thinking. Y’all stay put.” That lets him go through the rest of their supplies and make sure everything is easy to find. Carl did really well with the food, and Shane does a mental calculation that they can make it about four days without rationing, longer if they do, but the water up here might not last quite that long. Dehydration is a real risk in a room like this one. With any luck, the herd will mosey on its way long before that’s an issue.

The kids are looking a little bit rattled now, compared to their quiet efficiency both in the run through the woods and the work to get up here. The twin mattresses are pressed together, with the sheets back on them, but the other bedding is piled to the side since it’s too damned hot. “Think y’all can sleep yet?”

Sophia nods, but Beth and Carl shake their heads.

“Tell you what. Sophia, why don’t you tuck back against the eaves there and get some rest. There’s some playing cards in the emergency bin, so we’ll pass the time a bit before everyone joins you in snoozing.”

The blonde yawns and smiles weakly, before laying down. Beth fetches one of the blankets and rolls it up, sticking it between Sophia and the rough finished attic wall. The poor kid is asleep before Beth can ease back to the edge of the mattress to see what Carl’s found in the bin Shane found downstairs. 

“They must have really hated being bored if the electricity was out,” Carl mutters, holding up a couple of boxes of card games. “Got regular cards, Uno, Rook, Skipbo, Phase 10, and Yahtzee.”

“Think we might want to skip out on the Yahtzee,” Beth remarks, grinning.

Shane settles the leftover blankets from the spare room into a cushion to sit on opposite the kids once they settle on playing Rook. Beth pops the lid back on the bin to use as a table. He’s exhausted out of his mind, but there’s no way he’s sleeping until the kids do.

They play four games before Carl pretty much falls asleep sitting up, so Shane helps Beth maneuver him into lying down. She crawls in between him and Sophia, going to sleep almost as fast. Shane eases from the cramped position. His thigh screams at him, but he ignores it to crawl around to reach Sophia and check for any fever. It’s been three hours since he treated the injury, and so far, her skin doesn’t seem any warmer than the other kids. 

After a peek under the barest edge of the window blanket shows him a mass of dead bodies stumbling aimlessly over the property, he sighs. It may be awhile before they can leave their little aerial haven, but at least they’re all safe for now. 

As he settles down next to Carl to sleep, Shane prays the others were as lucky in finding safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will feature what happened on the farm without them. It may not be a full chapter of nothing but the other folks, but we probably don't need a full chapter of the attic time either. :)
> 
> Obviously, never give alcohol to a teenager as a painkiller, okay? o.O
> 
> Sorry, still no doggos this chapter. Probably looking like Chapter Four now. I've posted a rotational posting schedule in my Profile to give folks an idea of how I'm trying to space out the different series so that they don't clump up and there be two weeks between anything of a series if I only put out a chapter a day. The offspring seems to have virtual school attendance well underway now, so I'm likely to be back to more of a regular writing schedule that could be as many as two chapters a day, now that I'm not helping her navigate video meetings, what seems like seven kinds of new software, and the very entertaining fun of virtual band and PE classes....


	3. Scraps of Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The frantic searchers find clues that make them fear the worst happened to the missing children and Shane. Meanwhile, the missing deputy ponders how the hell to make the stalled herd move on.

Maggie thought she could never know terror as strong as she did the day her mother rose from the dead and attempted to eat her brother. Shawn sacrificed himself to save Beth and Patricia, and it took only seventeen hours for him to die of the raging infection introduced by Annette Greene's teeth.

She still remembers him begging that he be placed in the barn before he actually died. Her brother's last hours were filled with fear that he would rise and harm his sisters. Otis carried him for her, laying him carefully in a bed of straw in one of the rickety old animal stalls. Three stalls down, she listened to the growls and thumps of the being that was once the only mother she can actually remember. Sponging off Shawn's sweaty face, she considered ending his pain herself.

Only the unforgivable sin of mercy killing her only brother stayed her hand.

In retrospect, she regrets not taking on that burden. No one ever expected Beth to be the one who snapped under the weight of Hershel's delusions about the undead. The adults failed Beth so completely that it doesn't surprise her that her sister spent almost all her time with the two newcomer teens and the convalescing deputy.

The world has far stronger ideas about what Maggie can survive. Hearing Daryl shout and his crossbow fire outside the house nearly froze her with terror. Once she was outside, all she could do was pray the injured deputy is as good as his partner and his sly ego imply. She knew her scream for him and the kids to run was heard, because she saw the movement past the barn going too fast to be walkers.

Then she was dragged into the rhythm of the fight, helping Glenn circle the house and praying they can buy enough time for the others to get loaded up and escape. It took several hours for everyone to regroup at the old highway where Rick's people once huddled under vehicles from a herd much like the one flooding Maggie's childhood home. Waiting until morning, there's no sign of Shane or the children.

Lori and Carol cling to each other, faces growing more bleak as even the bright light of day brings no cocky deputy and his three musketeers, as Glenn dubbed them. Leaving the two women behind with Dale, Patricia, and Otis and Patricia's seventeen year old son, Jimmy, Rick divides everyone up into vehicles to search, one native to one of Rick's people except for Daryl.

At least the stranded cars prove a motherload of fuel, once Daryl teaches them how to siphon gas even past modern safeguards. Having a mechanic in the group is invaluable. Following the search grid Rick and Daryl lay out, she and Glenn set off to search the farms north and then northeast of Maggie's home.

Daryl heads into the woods, reluctantly accepting Andrea as a search partner. The blonde looks pleased when he grumbles she's the only damned one older than sixteen that can walk quietly. The territory directly north of the farm is not farmland, so they have a lot of ground to cover. 

They hope the handheld radio the pair carries can reach the ones in the cars. Daryl, Glenn, and Dale did a good job of rigging radios into their vehicles gleaned from the abandoned ones on the highway. At least the lack of signal interference from cell phones and other electronics helps the radios work better.

On the morning of the third day after the farm fell, they're still looking. Daryl and Andrea didn't even come back in the two nights that passed since that first terrible night. Radioing in their lack of success, they camp in the woods. It's hard to picture sleek, city girl Andrea managing roughing it in the woods, but Daryl hasn't lost her in a hole somewhere at least.

Maggie slides back into the driver's seat before noon and tries not to let her frustration boil over onto Glenn. Her boyfriend looks as wrung out as she feels, yet another house is a dead end. This one feels worse, because it is a cluster of four houses, all extended family. Maggie knew most of them, and the reality of putting down the eleven year old she once babysat for a church member is breaking her heart.

Glenn drags her into his arms, letting her sob out her grief over this once bright and boisterous family being gone. The fear that they'll find her sister this way eats at her, too. Once her tears subside, he offers her a handkerchief, which makes her smile a little.

"Aren't you a little young for these?"

He just smiles sheepishly. "Dale gave it to me."

How like the elder man to realize at some point Maggie's composure was going to snap.

"We should radio in." It's Rick's orders, honed from missing persons searches before. No one wants to lose a searcher looking for their lost sheep.

Glenn reaches for the mike. They don't keep the volume up, too wary of noise out in the field, so all coordination goes through Dale at the moment. As soon as Dale replies, his sorrowful tone tells them something is badly wrong before he elaborates.

"Daryl and Andrea found something, but it's not good news. Bloody and discarded clothing turning northeast of the farm."

Maggie's heart sinks. On foot, in the dark, with the only adult still recovering from a gunshot wound that affects his mobility? The odds were against their survival.

"Whose?" Glenn asks, looking heartbroken. It reminds Maggie that it might be her sister missing, but Glenn's got three of his people lost, two of them children.

"Sophia and Carl's."

It's a terrible thing to feel grateful that her sister's name isn't mentioned, not with both other children listed. She knows it isn't even a guarantee Beth is safe. It just means she didn't leave any signs behind. Maggie's baby sister could be walking in that herd, clothing tattered and intact.

"Do we keep searching?" Glenn asks, after he clears his throat twice to manage it.

"Rick wants you to regroup at the highway. Daryl is going to keep tracking the herd. Search around the edges to see if any tracks veer off."

"We'll head back." Glenn hooks the mike back on the radio and slaps the dash furiously. It takes him a while to calm down, and he scrubs tears off his face.

Maggie crumples the map on the seat between them in frustration. They had four more areas to clear, arcing out from this little neighborhood to end at the old Collins farm due east of the Greene farm. It was put off until today to give the herd time to clear the area.

Heart heavy, she drives back toward grieving people and gives thanks that they don't seem to want to abandon the search entirely.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

As snarling and standoffish as Daryl tends to be around anyone other than the children of the group, Andrea can't really feel surprised when the man carefully bags the bloody remnants of Carl's red shirt and Sophia's battered canvas shoe and promptly punches a tree with an incoherent cry of rage. He may not care much for any adult, maybe even including his asshole brother most of the time, but the feral redneck has a soft spot for kids.

Three days of trekking through the woods at his heels, desperately listening to every scrap of lesson he sends her way, she's gotten a better feel for his prickly personality than she did in the months prior. As long as she respects what he does, the man will answer almost any question about his skill in the woods. But he's hurt and vulnerable right now, so she wisely backs off.

Offering the man comfort right now would be akin to jabbing a wounded grizzly with a cattle prod.

It's not that her gut doesn't churn with the memory of losing her sister. Amy might have been almost a decade older than the teens who fled into the woods, but the thought of any of them falling to a walker's teeth like her sister did makes her understand Daryl's need to scream and punch things all too well. She doesn't, because she honestly isn't sure she would ever stop screaming if she starts.

Daryl scrubs at his eyes, just as he did that day in the quarry after he learned Merle was left behind. "No signs of them here. They're either walking or stayed mobile a while."

"We keep tracking like we promised?" she asks, fists gripping into the material of her pants to keep her emotions in check.

"Course." Daryl stalks off, body language as shut off as it was the day they first met. 

Andrea doesn't ask any questions, even if she only understands half his movements now. She just covers his back, taking her machete to a half dozen stray walkers even as Daryl downs his own share with his crossbow. The trail of destruction doesn't help a damn bit.

They exit the treeline on a farm similar to Hershel's, and Daryl reaches out to snatch her back under cover. As they look out on the farm, it seems like ants cover the place, if they could be human sized.

"Jesus," she whispers. "Think someone is trapped in there?"

Daryl shakes his head, so close she can feel the movement. "They ain't agitated. Seems like they lost momentum. Got stalled out for some reason."

Studying the herd, she understands. It reminds her of watching the big clusters in Atlanta, before Rick stirred them up. The things seemed almost sleepy and moved aimlessly, just like these.

The walkers trampled the crops left to die in the field. Andrea studies the far away farmhouse, noting architectural details that might help mark it off their list. After studying the herd a while himself, Daryl sighs.

"Gotta backup and track the edges, now that we know where they went. Don't see any kids, at least."

Her heart lurches when she realizes that's what he was scanning for. Small, petite walkers that resembled children he's been helping keep fed and safe. With one last scan herself for the same, she follows him back into the woods.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Lunch on the third day is hot and oppressive in the attic. The kids are doing their best to cope with the heat, smell, dim lighting, and fear-laced boredom. Shane edges the blankets up, glad the windows proved well maintained and noiseless when he slid them up.

An experiment about half a day trapped in the heat showed the walkers don't seem to notice the children's quiet voices. They're too high up for the sound to focus. He's taped the blankets to allow a breeze, glad the late homeowner put screens on the windows. Not everyone bothers with those on the attic windows.

"They still out there?" Sophia asks, carefully opening a can of black beans to add to the Spaghetti-Os in their little cookpot. She suggested the odd combination, saying one of her friends' dads had a funny cookbook that called it Spaghetti-O Western with cheese and green onions added.

It's one of dozens of stories the children exchanged quietly over the past two and a half days. They've even coaxed Shane into youthful stories, ones he keeps to his and Rick's middle school or younger years. His high school ones aren't something he is sharing with kids he's responsible for.

They have resorted to mock lessons now and then. All three are fascinated that he speaks Spanish and game for vocabulary lessons. Beth teaches finger positions for clarinet, imparting music knowledge where she can't teach them to actually play. Sophia is the little artist, teaching the kids little sketch techniques on scraps of cardboard using the pen from the Yahtzee game. Carl's nearly encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel comics is a storytime treat for all of them.

"Yeah. It's like whatever they were looking for disappeared and they stalled out."

Beth unwraps a peppermint and pops the little candy in her mouth, thinking hard about something. "I think daddy's farm is the only one around with animals. Otis either collected them or set them free. They were probably attracted to those, right?"

"Yeah. We gotta wait until something draws them away." Shane checks the water levels in their containers. He slipped downstairs yesterday, dipping water out of the filled clawfoot tub in both buckets and risking a trickle of water into the empty water jugs. They'll last another day there, and the food will hold out until then easily. 

No one's had a real appetite thanks to the heat and smell, so they've rationed themselves without planning to. Even emptying the toilet bucket on the water trip only helped so much.

"Carl sleeping?" he asks quietly, taking Sophia's empty food cans and tucking them with the rest of the trash.

Beth reaches out and gently shakes the boy's shoulder. Carl snores just a little, making her smother a giggle. She reaches out and takes the bandana that slid onto the pillow, dipping it into the bowl of water they've been sparing for trying some sponging to cool their skin. Laying the damp cloth across Carl's forehead, they watch him settle a little as the breeze catches the damp.

The boy is struggling to sleep, as all of them do, to the point they're sleeping in shifts just to not have anyone's body heat too close. Carl seems to have lost the ability to sleep at night entirely. Shane's surprised Beth hasn't crashed as well, because the girl sat up playing card game after card game with Carl.

"Need to change your bandages, Sophia. You got a minute?"

She peers into the pot of food and nods. Shane envies the kids their lesser height, because all of them can stand up straight in the peak. Bringing the first aid kit to him, she peeks carefully out the window. 

"There's so many." She shudders even as she lets him peel away the sweaty bandage on her arm. 

They are lucky so far. There's still no sign of inflammation or infection. Shane slathers on antibiotic cream and reapplies a bandage, hating that it slows the healing process. He can't risk it, not in an attic that probably has decades of dust and dead bugs lurking.

"You think everyone else is okay?"

Unvoiced, is her mother okay, he thinks. Carol is slowly coming out of her shell and joined in the first shooting lesson he gave everyone, but he turned the adults over to Rick once the kids got started. 

"Yeah, I bet they were. Remember the gunfire? I'll bet that was a distraction to let folks get to vehicles, because there were too many to actually overpower without running out of ammo."

She smiles slightly, leaning in for a hug. "Don't want to burn lunch."

Shane leans back against the wall next to the window as the two girls smirk over some shared joke. He doesn't have a damned clue what to do if something doesn't distract the herd soon. They can't stay up here forever, and he can't imagine how frantic their parents are right now.

Rubbing at his hair, going too long and shaggy, he allows himself to let go of the worry as the girls smother giggles. He's kept them safe. That'll count for something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Multiple POVs in this, opting for ones I don't usually write. I wanted to sideswipe the fear and grief without being in one of the actual parents' minds.
> 
> Yes, the mistaken belief that Shane and the kids are dead will persist, sadly. It won't last ages, but long enough for Shane and the kids to bond amd adventure, not realizing they're thought dead.
> 
> Puppies in the next chapter. 🐕


	4. Tiny Rescues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane and the kids finally get free of the farmhouse, but find no sign of the others. Taking refuge in a local church, they discover a starving litter of tiny puppies that keep the kids' hopes up.

On the morning of the fifth day in the attic, Shane is shaken awake by Sophia, who is as excited as he’s ever seen her. It’s a definite change from the lethargy they’ve all experienced the last few days. 

“They’re gone, Shane. They left in the night!”

He sits up, feeling his shirt clinging to him with the sweat that never leaves them up here. Beth is sitting at the window looking as overjoyed as Sophia, and Carl is getting groggily to his knees. Keeping quiet by habit, Shane goes to peer out the window that faced the woods the walkers came from.

Nothing. Not even a damned straggler lost in the field full of overripe vegetables.

Feeling hopeful, he crosses the attic, tugging the other blanket out of the way carefully. Nothing here, either. Whatever distracted the herd in the night, Shane hopes no one out there died to bring about the end to their farmhouse siege.

“I’m going to slip downstairs and do a full parameter check. Keep an ear out at the attic stairs, alright?”

The kids nod almost in unison as he pulls his socks and boots on. Shane eases the folding stairs down and carrying his Glock ready, checks each room on the second floor as he passes. No sense in getting sloppy, even though he knows the odds anything got inside are damned low. With each check of a downstairs window, though, his hope rises another notch.

Feeling unease grip his gut, he reaches out and opens the front door, stepping out onto the porch. The exterior perimeter check reveals the same thing as the interior. No walkers. Not even a stray bobbing drunkenly behind.

Back inside the house, he locks the door. As wonderful as this news is, they aren’t going to go running out of the house right away. 

“Kids? Coast is clear. You can come down.”

If their teenage brains weren’t tuned so hard to caution about sound by now, Shane thinks they would cheer as they come down the stairs. The days in the attic gave them one advantage, because Sophia’s ankle is healed, at least.

“Are we going to leave?” Carl asks, peeking out the kitchen window as if the outside world is something he hasn’t seen this close for weeks instead of days.

“Yeah. But first, I want everyone to get cleaned up. I’m not sure a walker would take a look at us right now, as rank as we all are. I’ll get the generator up so that the water tank doesn’t run dry.”

Carl follows him outside to check on the generator, watching apprehensively as Shane gets the propane powered thing going. It’s not a quiet engine, never meant to be noiseless with the farmhouse so remote, so it’s a test of whether the walkers are really gone. Inside the house, he hears the downstairs shower start up and figures the other girl headed for the upstairs shower.

Once they’re back inside, Carl wrinkles his nose. “We’re going to need something clean to wear. Otherwise, might as well stay dirty.”

“Nah. Shower will cool us off, if nothing else, but yeah. Let’s see what we can find.” Shane hasn’t forgotten that Sophia’s shoeless, either.

It doesn’t take long to improvise for the girls, at least. The lady of the house might have been many times their age, but she was small framed like both teenagers. The man of the house was built more like Otis. Shane can get by wearing his clothes, although the man was easily four inches taller, but Carl would look like a toddler playing dress up.

The boy sighs and goes to fetch clothing out of the woman’s dresser. “Y’all will not mention this at all,” he grumbles. At least her taste ran to blues, greens, and browns in solid colors, so once everyone’s clean, Shane might not even guess where Carl’s blue t-shirt and sturdy jeans came from if he didn’t actually know.

They get doubly lucky, because the workboots in the mud tray by the backdoor are only half a size too big for Sophia.

Beth finds a spare set of truck keys in an upstairs desk drawer, so Shane backs the ancient little Ford Ranger to the back door. It would have been better to find the keys to the station wagon, but there’s no success on those. Damn thing is too new to bypass the ignition, and his three rising auto thieves look way too disappointed that he can’t teach them how to hotwire a car.

Unsure on how soon they’ll find the others, Shane and the kids refill every single water container they can lay hands on and put them in the back of the truck. There’s very little edible left in the house, but they take what they can and load the emergency bin that saved their sanity in the attic for good measure. By unspoken consensus, none of them suggest harvesting anything from the fields they watched walkers linger in for days.

“I got half a tank of gas in the truck. That should get us far enough to see if they were able to get back to the farm after the herd,” he tells them as he shuts off the generator. “And if they aren’t there, we can start searching safely.”

Getting all four of them in the truck is like stuffing a clown car. A full size truck wouldn’t have been too bad, since none of the teenagers are large framed. But the Ranger is definitely not full sized. After some giggling and debating, the girls decide that Beth perching in Sophia’s lap is workable, wedging Carl in the middle of the small truck cab.

Even though it’s a waste of precious gas, Shane spares miles to turn the air conditioning on, watching the kids bask in the artificially cool air as they pick up speed down the long driveway. Their grins make it worth it.

Only one stray walker is wandering down a roadside as he follows Beth’s directions to her house, which aren’t as straightforward as you would expect thanks to the weirdness of country property lines. It’s not yet noon when they pull into the half-destroyed farmyard. Unlike their refuge, there are still walkers, so Shane does the fastest U-turn he’s ever managed and hightails it the hell back down the driveway.

“Dammit,” he grunts. “Definitely not there if there’s still that many dead here.”

“I think the scent of the cattle is confusing them,” Beth says, looking back the way they came with a mournful expression. “The fences were down, but even with the cows escaping or maybe some eaten, everything always smells like cows here.”

Sophia hugs Beth. “Something got in the house,” the older blonde states hesitantly.

They all saw that, the front door wide open and windows damaged. Shane just hopes it was carelessness in shutting the door and not the dead breaking in to find someone trapped inside. He doesn’t mention that the little lean-to barn that Randall was locked in was smashed up. If the little asshole got left behind and eaten, that’s just fucking karma as far as Shane’s concerned.

“Most of the cars were gone,” Carl pipes up. “Dale’s RV, the big Suburban, Daryl’s motorcycle, most of the others.”

That’s a good sign, Shane thinks. “We’ll check the place on the highway where the RV broke down. Hopefully, they went there first and maybe left some sign of where they might go next.”

The highway itself is too open and vulnerable, so Shane can’t imagine that five days later, their people would be still camped out there, even with the RV. When he pulls the Ranger over, he cautions the kids to stay in the truck. “Anything happens, Carl, you can figure out how to drive this if you need to, right?”

Carl nods, eyeing the gear shift and sliding over so Beth can sit in the seat. “Since they aren’t here, are we going to look for supplies?”

“Probably not, other than the water if there’s any left on that water truck. I think it’s mostly been picked clean.” That’s why there’s no reason for the kids to risk leaving the truck.

Shane walks the area, seeing signs that he was right they came back here. There are cans and wrappers too fresh to be from their first sojourn here, as well as the remains of a campfire just off the pavement where its light would be better hidden. The water truck is empty, so at least they stocked up. He remembers there still being at least six of the big bottles of water left. Several of the newer vehicles have the acrid stink of spilled gasoline, and a check under one shows a drilled tank. It would make him laugh, if it weren’t for it making it futile for him to find gas.

Remembering the shoe polish message they left before they realized Sophia was safe, Shane checks windshields. The old message on the Mustang is lost to weather, just white smears. Seeing the bottle of shoe polish in the driver’s seat, he renews the message.

Kids safe. Will check back for messages.

Since they can’t stay here with the safest supplies picked clean, Shane makes his way back to the Ranger. The kids rearrange to let him inside, looking disappointed.

“At least we know they were here,” he tells them. “We’ll go from farm to farm if we have to.”

Beth nibbles at her bottom lip. “Maybe we should try town? Even if they didn’t go that way, we could probably find food and supplies easier there than going from farm to farm. Eventually they would go into town, right?”

It’s as good an idea as any, and Shane wasn’t looking forward to dragging the kids from farm to farm, probably going in circles and missing the others in the process. “Give me a second.”

Clambering out of the truck, he jogs back to the Mustang and adds: Going to Farm Girl’s Supply Depot. With any luck, the nickname he and Daryl both have pitched at Maggie at different times will remind them of the pharmacy and market that Maggie gleaned supplies from, without alerting any unfriendlies.

Granted, that’s where they found that squirrely little bastard and his friends, but hiding in town should be easier than out here, if he’s really careful.

Keeping their eyes peeled, they make it to the pharmacy, where Shane leaves Carl in the driver’s seat again and slips inside. Nothing seems disturbed, with shelves still holding more supplies than they would have if Shane had been in charge of runs. Hershel and his rules about leaving it for other survivors makes him feel just pissy enough that he clears out everything he thinks they might use.

The kids grin when he tosses them the bags of chips and sets the bags of supplies in the truck bed. There’s not a lot beyond snack food for them to eat, but now they’ve got a good chunk of medical supplies at least.

“Hey, Beth?” 

She looks up from where she’s sharing a bag of Doritos with Sophia. “Yeah?”

“Any of the churches in town run a food bank?”

She gets the idea quickly and grins. “Yeah. Methodists over on the east side of town.”

Figuring no one really looks toward churches to find supplies, especially those of the sort of intent a group like Randall’s would have, Shane finds the church easily. Parking the truck nearest the door Beth indicates they issue the pantry from, he lets the kids get out this time. There’s only one walker inside the building, even checking all the classrooms and nooks. 

Beth covers the body of the minister gently with choir robes and closes the office door. “Seems a good place for a pastor to lay to rest.”

The church is as hot as any other southern building without air conditioning, but it has a second story that seems designed for easy air flow. Cracking several of the windows, he doesn’t have to warn the kids to be quiet by this point. His estimate that the food pantry might be useful is correct. It’s not an endless supply, and they’re going to get really fucking tired of beans of all types, but he can keep them fed for a week here.

“Alright. Come cover me while I siphon the two cars in the lot and then check the yards around for cars with either gas or keys.” 

Teaching the kids the trick about punching the gas tanks from below works well enough to fill two five gallon gas cans found in the vehicles, plus the one in the Ranger, after they top out the tank. The house directly behind the church looks too fancy to be the parsonage, and breaking into the garage yields more gas, but no damned keys. 

“I wonder how many walkers are halfway across Georgia with their car keys still in their pocket,” Carl muses.

Beth giggles. “I’ve seen lady ones with those backpack purses still hung on their arms.”

At least they’re finding some sources of amusement, he thinks. The house seems to be empty, initially, until they hear the weirdest noise at one of the bedroom doors. Sophia touches the knob, before hesitating. “I’m hearing a dog, right? A puppy or little dog?”

“Yeah, you are.” Shane moves to take point. There’s a distinct yip at the sound of his voice near the door. The kids drop back just a little as he turns the knob.

The first thing that hits him is the god awful smell. It’s not the first time Shane’s encountered the distasteful funk of a dog kept indoors without proper sanitation, but damn, he wishes those days were far behind him. A ball of hyperactive fluff tumbles out the door, and it takes Shane a minute to recognize it as some sort of really small puppy.

It also gets almost immediately picked up by Sophia, but since that quiets the cream colored ball of fur, he doesn’t object. Stepping into the room, he realizes that some of the stink is a deceased dog. “Stay out of the room,” he calls back, not wanting the tenderhearted girls to see the poor thing. Walkers are bad, but he knows girls and small fluffy dogs.

Searching the room he locates three more puppies, all seeming half starved and bony. He doesn’t think the mom has been dead long, because it doesn’t take long for pups this small to starve to death or die of dehydration. He’s just glad they weren’t big enough to reach the toilet in the bathroom and fall in to drown. The reason for the mom’s survival this long is revealed in a not quite empty automatic dog feeder.

They take the four tiny critters to a different bathroom and scrub them clean, letting them drink in small quantities. Beth cautions the other two. “Don’t let them drink too much at once. They’ll just get sick.”

“You think they’re big enough to eat regular food?” Shane asks Beth. She’s got an expensive powder blue bath towel tucked around a multicolor pup and a brownish one, while Sophia still has the cream colored pup, and Carl seems to have taken over a little merle colored one.

“Maybe. I haven’t really seen a lot of Pomeranians this small, so I’m guessing, but we can try to feed them something from the food pantry and see if they eat it. If not, we could try the farm store. I bet they still have milk replacer. No one would collect that up nowadays.”

Shane wants to say they can’t keep the four little puppies, but even Carl has the most pleading expression he’s ever seen on a kid. All this death around them, and now they’re holding tiny new sparks of life. He can see the appeal, in a way. Sighing, he searches the house and finds two backpacks. 

“Need to keep your hands free. Put the pups in the backpacks, separate so they aren’t overcrowded.”

“Put a towel in first,” Beth cautions. “They’re probably little enough to potty at will.”

Lovely. Unhousetrained pups. The damage is done, because both girls have the backpacks on with their wiggly cargo. Carl’s in the kitchen, rummaging in the pantry and tossing cans in a reusable shopping bag. “They had a cat, too. Did we find a cat?”

In all the searching, Shane didn’t turn up anything else, live or otherwise, so he’s hoping the cat escaped somehow. Felines are at a decided advantage in the wild, as long as some prissy owner didn’t declaw it. “Bet the puppies can eat the cat food. Load it up.”

Checking outdoors, Shane gathers the gas cans and leads his little troop back to the church. “Test and see which of the rooms seem the most soundproof and put the pups in there. We don’t know how noisy they might be.”

The girls head upstairs, Carl following. Shane drags a tarp over the Ranger where it’s half hidden in an untrimmed privet hedge and locks the door for now. He wants to get out and search for the others, but staying put in a central location is probably smarter than wandering.

By the time he gets upstairs, the kids have taken his caution for quiet to heart. The puppies are in an oversized closet, little tongues lapping up moist cat food from giggling children who are dipping their fingers in the food and coaxing them to eat. Remembering Beth’s warning about them getting sick, he figures the girl knows to do the same with their food. He tosses each of the kids a raspberry flavored breakfast bar from the downstairs pantry to tide them over and props himself against the wall outside the closet.

They’re better off today than they were the past few days, and everyone’s still safe. If his responsibilities just multiplied again, Shane will figure it out just like everything else. The sheer joy on the kids’ faces is worth the anxiety of tiny canine mouths to feed.

~*~*~*~*~ 

By nightfall on the fifth day after the farm fell and they lost the kids, everyone in the borrowed house is losing hope. Yesterday evening, a group of ten walkers passing through the highway camp sent them scurrying to find something less open and dangerous, so they’re in the small neighborhood of related people that Glenn and Maggie cleared earlier in the search. Daryl can’t stand the oppressive sense of mourning inside the house everyone crowded inside, so he’s hiding on the back porch.

Standing watch, he claims, but his mind is caught in a nightmare spin of the still missing kids and deputy. The hunter wants to be optimistic and claim the kids all are out there okay somewhere. His faith that Sophia would be okay turned out to be true. But with Sophia, they never found bloody clothing, and the girl didn’t have to outrun over a hundred of the fucking dead monsters.

Biting at his thumbnail, he resists the urge to punch something. His knuckles are still bruised and scabbed from punching the tree when he found the shirt and shoe. Breathing deeply, he tries to ignore that he can hear Lori Grimes crying softly inside. As much as the bitchy woman annoys him more than any other female in camp, he wouldn’t wish this on her.

If he went inside, Daryl knows she isn’t the only tearful one. Even Glenn’s spirit is dimming, as they cover ground north and east of the farm and still find no evidence that anyone escaped the herd.

They’ll just keep looking. With no evidence of anything happening to the littlest Green or Walsh himself, there’s still hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geographically, Rick's group is up north and east of town, following logic that they stayed on foot and kept running away from the herd.
> 
> Shane and the kids won't stay in town for long, but at least they have better plumbing than a bucket for now, right?


	5. Wildfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drunken arsonists start a wildfire that scatters everyone in very different directions.

They use the church as a base for two days. Both days, they check the farm and the highway jam to no success. Shane is getting worried and frustrated. Where the hell are the others?

Deciding to load everything up to start a search since there's been no signs of Randall's people, he urges the kids to rest up. His paranoia has him maintain a night watch even now. The kids don't seem to mind, sitting their four hour shifts with better attitudes than most adults.

It's the watch that saves their lives.

"Shane!" He's shaken awake hard enough by Carl that he bangs his head. "Cars came to town, but they're setting things on fire down where the shops are."

It isn't midnight yet. Shane comes alert and wakes the girls. "Get to the truck!"

They have their boots on and the puppies in the backpacks in record time. He already half loaded the truck before bed, so at least there's food, water, and supplies already in the Ranger. He and Carl still slide two more boxes of canned goods into the truck bed before they get inside.

Gunshots and raucous laughter ring out in the night air. Even if it isn't the group they're avoiding, there's nothing good about what is obviously drunken behavior. Shane is glad of the noise, as it covers the sound of him starting the Ranger. Leaving the headlights off, he's glad of having just enough moonlight to see dim roads. 

Unsure of any direction being safe, he heads south out of town, the one area he hasn't explored. Beth perches where she can look out the back window. She's pale and shaking. "Half the town is on fire, Shane!"

Jesus Christ. With no human intervention, the fire could spread insanely far. "Carl. Grab the map and tell me where this highway connects to anything going east."

Carl has the map open and a flashlight turned on. "Where are we going?"

"Home." King County is not so far away that he can't manage trips to search the area around Senoia, but he knows the lay of the land there. It will be easier to keep the kids safe there, and if the fire follows, there's rivers and lakes to protect them.

"How far away is that?" Beth asks. She wriggles back down in the seat, hugging the backpack of puppies Sophia passes up to her from where she's crouched in the floorboard.

"About forty miles," Carl answers easily. At everyone's questioning looks, he shrugs. "I asked Mom one day, just how far from home we were, if Fort Benning didn't work out. I didn't see why we couldn't go home."

It makes Shane wonder if the others might seek out King County, too. Surely, Lori might remember the conversation with her son? If not, like Carl said, it's only about forty miles. Even as messed up as some of the roads are, they can make search trips.

"Will we go to your place?" Carl asks after giving him the connecting highway.

"You don't want to go to your house?" Sophia queries. She has her two puppies loose, each cuddled close to her chest.

"It's not really safe there. Or it wasn't when we left."

Shane remembers having to put down multiple neighbors on his way to the Grimes house. One reason he hates the idea of going back is that he will recognize so many of the walkers. Even though none are his family, he can't imagine the horror of slogging through people he knew from work and daily life.

"You must be used to roughing it, buddy," Shane replies. There's an increasing glow in the mirrors as he makes the eastern turn.

The fire is spreading.

"Why roughing it at your house?" Beth wants to know. The way she's huddled down, flicking glances toward the side mirror, he knows she sees it, too.

Shane increases speed, far enough out to risk the headlights, and prays for no unexpected obstacles.

"Shane is renovating his house," Carl explains. "Like one of those shows on TV."

It's a slow process with his work schedule, but Shane's normally content with the old place. After camping for months, he doesn't think the kids will object much. He doesn't elaborate, concentrating on the road.

They lose sight of any fire before they reach the spot to cross under the interstate. Shane prays it burns out before it gets this far. It might be uncharitable of him, but he hopes the idiot arsonists fell victim to their own work.

It's still dark when he pulls into his driveway. Not far over the county line, the place isn't any more secure than Hershel's place. The main protection is that it's remote, because fixing up the ramshackle fence wasn't a first priority before the dead walked. Shane checks the house to find nothing disturbed from how he left it, so he lights an oil lamp and goes back outside.

"Carl, show the girls inside. Get some sleep on the pullout bed." Shane isn't going to be able to sleep, so the four hours he got before Carl woke him will just have to do.

"Can the puppies go inside?" Beth asks, reminding him the little fluffballs have accidents.

"Floors are all hardwood or tile. See if they'll use the bathroom before you go inside."

Walking the perimeter of the vine covered livestock wire fence, Shane keeps an eye on the kids as they let the puppies roll around on the grass in the dim moonlight. Despite the rude awakening and fleeing the fire, all three seem in good spirits. While the lack of success in finding the others is wearing on him, the kids adapt better, probably because they have each other for support. Shane thinks he might give his left arm for another adult to help keep them safe.

After the kids disappear inside, he climbs to the top of what was once a detached garage of sorts, wanting higher ground to keep an eye out whether the fire followed them this far. Part of him considered pushing onward as far as Lake Jackson, to use the big reservoir lake as a firebreak. The other doubts the fire will burn this far. 

Around Senoia, everything was dry since there hadn't been much rain. But King County doesn't need rainfall as much to not be parched, thanks to numerous creeks, rivers, and other bodies of water. Place is damn near swampy still. None of the trees around his place have that droopy look of not enough moisture that the ones around Hershel's place were getting.

Come daylight, he heads inside, spying the sprawl of teenagers on the pullout sofa bed, cuddled together despite the heat. He wonders if he really should be letting Carl sleep with the girls, but the teenager is a hell of a lot more polite than he was at that age. Besides, if the boy gets handsy with either girl, Shane is pretty sure they'll hand him his skinny little ass easily.

Avoiding the fridge, since he probably left enough things in there to make it a bad idea, he sets water to boil on the stove. Best thing about living in the boonies is everything being propane, not natural gas. Digging out a small colander, he perches it on the carafe from the coffee pot and lines it with a triple layer of filters to make it take longer for hot water to seep through.

"Are we going to go check on the fire?" Beth asks from behind him. She's perched on one of the stools at the breakfast bar, the only seating in the kitchen. He never bothered with a table or dining chairs. The tricolor puppy she calls Max is cuddled in her arms.

It makes him look around, finding two of the pups sniffing around the living room area. The last is trying to attack Shane's bootlaces. He scoops him up, eying the little brown pup. "Those aren't food."

"You should give him a name," Beth says, giggling. "He's yours, after all."

"Gonna call him Not My Dog, then," he tells her. "Because the pups all belong to y'all." It's been a running theme with the kids that since there are four of them and four dogs, the little brown ball of fluff is Shane's. Somehow, the dog is part of the conspiracy, always seeking him out.

"You know if you don't name him, Sophia will."

The other girl's puppy is the only female, a cream colored fluffball she calls Cupcake. At least Beth's Max and Carl's merle colored Wolverine don't have terribly cutesy names. "I'll take my chances." Putting the pup down to check the boiling water, he nudges it with the toe of his boot. "Go play with your siblings, Not My Dog."

Once he pours the water over coffee grounds, he starts more water boiling, this time for grits. Then he answers Beth's question. "Yeah. We'll go look today. Need to know what we're dealing with."

After the other kids join them sleepily rubbing their eyes, Shane gets them fed and sends everyone in turns for a real bath instead of sink bathing. He wonders about taking a day off searching after checking the fire, because the kids need clothes they haven't been wearing for days. Shedding his own clothing really reminds him of that, because he does get to put on something clean and feels guilty for it.

Back in familiar territory helps a little in another way. Before they set out, he snags the hidden key to the house just down the road and finds the keys to the sturdy nineties model Jeep Cherokee the elderly man drove. Arthur was an early victim of the virus, transported by ambulance to the hospital, so he won't miss the Cherokee.

Shane eyes the kids as they retrace their midnight route. The girls are in the backseat, puppies sprawled between them, letting Carl ride shotgun. "Today we're just checking how far the fire went. We need to take the day to get some supplies, and at least here, there's a town a little bigger than Senoia."

The closest town to Shane's place isn't the county seat that Rick lives in, but a place barely able to keep itself incorporated as a town with a last census population of 203. They rely on the county for both fire and police protection, mainly providing water and trash service for residents. With his place outside their town limits, Shane is nevertheless familiar because of his job.

It won't have much in the way of obvious resources, not like the county seat and its population of five thousand or so. But it also means the odds of unfriendlies wandering by are better than staying at Rick's place. Even his sad excuse for a fence is better than nothing at all.

"But we'll keep looking, right?" Beth asks. 

Of all the kids, she worries the most about finding her family. He suspects Carl's worries are offset by being with him, and Sophia? That girl learned long ago not to fret over things she can't control. Shane recognizes a kindred soul there from the way he was at her age.

"Yeah, we won't stop looking. But your families will be mighty pissed off at me if I return you dirty and underfed."

Content with that answer, Beth falls quiet until they reach the Coweta County line and see the desolate landscape left behind by the fire. As far as Shane can see, there's nothing but burned remains of trees and occasional buildings. The fire swept south the worst, making him glad he turned east with the kids when he did. A small creek worked as a makeshift firebreak in their direction.

"Holy shit," Carl mutters. "How far do you think it burned?"

Shane can't remember enough of the geography to be sure. "Probably until it hit water somewhere, or a wide enough road to keep it from crossing."

Glancing at Beth, he tries to reassure her, because she's crying and hugging that puppy to her chest. This is the area she grew up in. Maybe she even knows someone who lived in one of the few houses they can see. "We'll circle around it, but not today, sweetheart. Can't risk the Jeep's tires yet with the heat and debris."

He can still see embers in some places and prays for a summer thunderstorm to finally appear. Wherever the rest of their people are, Shane hopes the fire didn't catch them without warning. If he hadn't been so paranoid about keeping watch, Christ Almighty, he can't think about it.

Beth wipes at her eyes and nods. "Gotta stay safe."

Turning the Jeep around, Shane hates seeing her already trying to teach herself not to cry. Damn world is making kids grow up too fast. Knowing that fires happened even before the dead walked doesn't help the ache he feels for these teenagers. It never would happen like this before, not in the settled parts of Georgia. Every fire department in every neighboring county would have helped.

When they reach King County again, Carl sighs. "Think that consignment shop downtown is okay, Shane?"

The kids lose themselves in planning a raid on Carl's former hometown while Shane drives, glad once again that teens are so damned resilient.

~*~*~*~*~

Glenn doesn't think that Dale drove all the damned way back to the old quarry on purpose, not really. The terror of being woken with fire bearing down on them scattered everyone's thinking. He knows he followed the RV mindlessly as he drove Maggie's car. No one even realized they were missing people until they pulled over when Dale finally stopped.

Maggie is shivering despite the muggy morning air that promises no respite from the early August heat. Wrapping his arms around her, he gives her what comfort he can, studying the others huddled around the fire T-Dog started to make some sort of breakfast for them.

Of the group that left their last little safe haven, six are missing. He's not sure Maggie can cope with her father, Patricia, and Jimmy not being here. Otis looks so small in his worried state, despite his large frame. He isn't the only man minus his spouse, although Otis has the poor consolation of his son being considered missing, not dead. Atop the RV, Rick keeps watch, but Glenn thinks it's more because he can cry in private up there.

Andrea and Dale move to help T-Dog, the only ones not needing comfort this morning. If they couldn't find Shane and Beth in the small area they were likely to be in, Glenn has no idea how they find anyone now. It's a fucking needle in a haystack, and everyone knows it.

The grief settling over the small camp is so thick he can almost taste it. Shuddering at the thought, Glenn just holds Maggie close, giving her what comfort he can.

~*~*~*~*~

"You need to drink something, Carol."

Hershel's already been worried about Carol, long before the chaos of escaping the wildfire separated them from the rest of the group. Considering he had to literally carry her to the Suburban, it's alarming that her grief is turning her passively suicidal. 

They're far northwest of his home now. Afraid of how far the fire would spread without human intervention, he just drove until he hit the interstate just north of Newnan. With all that concrete between them and the fire, he locked the Suburban inside the fence surrounding an auto repair shop. Jimmy and Patricia scavenged snacks and drinks from the vending machines.

It's just the four of them here, with no idea where the others are once the flaming oak fell and cut the Suburban off from the caravan of vehicles. He prays Otis is okay, but he's glad Patricia at least has Jimmy. With all the other teens missing and then two presumed dead, the older teen is never far from Patricia's sight.

Carol doesn't respond, as mute as she's been since Daryl brought back that battered and bloody canvas shoe. Lori's grief was open and vocal, as was her devastated husband's. But Carol? She just folded up on herself and became a ghost, barely responding only if someone guided her through her bodily needs.

It seems she's reached the limit of that much cooperation. Exchanging a worried look with Patricia, he leaves Carol huddled in the passenger seat and steps away from the vehicle. "I don't want to take drastic measures, but we may need to."

Patricia eyes the catatonic woman and sighs. "I wonder if that's the kindest thing to do."

The idea of just letting Carol die makes Hershel recoil. "You didn't let me die when I wanted to, Patricia." Because he had wanted that, very badly, those first days after Jo died, when Maggie was so small. His wife's cousin bullied him into living again, reminding him of what he did have to live for.

Even as he opens the back of his SUV for supplies once meant for the animals he treated, he ignores the idea that both times grief seized him, he had someone to come back for. Hopefully Carol will forgive his need not to see another helpless woman die when he can stop it.

His Bethie is out there somewhere. He has faith in her and that deputy she's with. She takes after her mama, and Annette was an old school survivor. Maggie? Wherever his other girl is right now, Hershel is confident she's safe. Even the end of the world won't conquer Maggie.

~*~*~*~*~

Lori isn't entirely sure how she ended up with Daryl Dixon in the scramble to flee the wildfire, but somehow she's left clinging to the back of the gruff man as the Triumph travels at speeds probably not safe even when the world was normal. They don't stop until light dawns across the highway they're on, after hours of weaving in and out of obstacles on the various roads like it's a video game. He never responds once to any of her pleas to slow down or stop, leaving her to just cling like a baby spider monkey and pray.

Easing off the motorcycle on shaking legs, Lori stumbles to a nearby car and holds onto the trunk for support. It feels like the time they went deep sea fishing when she was a kid, how her legs didn't work right on land at first. When she looks back at Daryl, he's off the bike, too, pacing and looking panicked.

"Fuck! I'm sorry, Lori. Fuck!" More profanity follows, creative enough to make her tired mind reluctantly impressed.

"What are you sorry for?" she asks, glad the man's at least talking again. It's good to have something to focus on that isn't her dead son and dying marriage. There's no way she and Rick come back from losing Carl, even without what happened with her and Shane still unsaid between them.

Guilt and grief shoot through her at the thought. Her baby boy is dead, taken by the rotting parodies of humanity. It's just a matter of time before they all fall prey. Maybe she won't have to miss Carl long.

If she was serious with those thoughts she would have fought being hauled onto the bike, she thinks. But she thinks she could never be so far gone she would sit and let fire take her.

Daryl points at the sign in the distance as his answer.

Welcome to Florida.

Holy shit. Whatever demon rode along with them on that Triumph tonight, it sent her and Daryl hundreds of miles south. Daryl's pale and sweaty, looking off kilter still. Lori considers asking what's wrong, but thinks of the terror in his voice when he ordered her to hang on.

The hunter is petrified by fire, she realizes, and pushes away her own concerns for now. Since he can't plan, she will.

"Alright. So we find somewhere to sleep and then we find our way back. We can fix this."

Daryl expected her to be angry, probably to scream at him or cry, she thinks. So he blinks at her a few times before nodding. "You remember the last gas station we passed?"

That confirms her belief Daryl was in some sort of fugue state for the last few hours. Lori nods. "About a mile back that way."

When Daryl wheels the Triumph around and looks at her expectantly, Lori gathers her tattered courage and climbs behind him. She meant what she said. They can fix this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In order for Shane to have time to train the kids on his own, disaster had to strike somehow... The obstacles toward reuniting the four groups are not yet done. 😈
> 
> I debated who would end up with Daryl for a while, not wanting to do the usual Caryl on the Motorcycle stuff. I considered Andrea, Maggie, and even Rick. Then I remembered his mom dying in the house fire... Lost in a PTSD episode, he saved another mother instead...
> 
> As a reminder, in this AU, Jimmy wasn't Beth's boyfriend, but Patricia and Otis's son. Lori doesn't yet know she's pregnant.


	6. First fire, Then Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All four groups wait out a tropical storm that follows the wildfire in different ways, before planning how to find the others.

Shane has to remind himself over the next several days that the way the world is now just seems prone to Murphy’s Law. What can go wrong, does. Luckily, some protective bubble seems to surround him and the kids, and he’s starting to think guardian angels have to exist. If so, they’re likely exhausted, keeping up with their quartet.

Inspecting the fire’s damage path that first day, he remembers wishing for a thunderstorm to make sure the remaining embers were doused. Apparently, Mother Nature was listening all too well. After looting the consignment shop for clothing for the girls and clearing a lot of food and supplies from the local farm co-op store, Carl wisely suggested collecting his own clothing. Apparently, what he took with him didn’t make a dent in what he left behind, because the boy easily packed up more than a week’s worth of sturdy clothing instead of the summery ones he took to Atlanta.

As they left the Grimes’ house, Shane spotted the girls looking at the sky and frowning. “The clouds look weird, Shane,” Sophia told him. “We were trying to remember the kind of clouds that do that.”

Recognizing the incoming rainbands of a tropical storm made Shane curse and hustle the kids home. They were about to get more rain than he wanted.

That prediction proved correct, making him glad the part of his property the house was on wasn’t a low lying area. The creek on one side flooded, a rapid rise as night fell, leaving them essentially on an island for hours before the water slowly drained away once the rain stopped. Then the next round of thunderstorms hit. Four days worth of rain, as the damn storm either stalled or moved so slowly he couldn’t tell if it was moving at all.

Thank God these kids were already used to being trapped inside, and his house, even half remodeled as it is, is a damn sight better than that hot, stuffy attic room. There’s at least plenty of space to spread out, air circulation, and most importantly, a bathroom.

He hopes that wherever the others are, they found shelter after that fire, and that any storms in the area just dumped a lot of rain and wind on them. Venturing out on the fifth day after the storm hit, Shane finds that his property is relatively intact, aside from some good sized limbs blown out of the oak trees, but further down the road, Arthur’s place lost an white oak that was probably two hundred years old or more. The oak took out half of Arthur’s late wife’s prized southern magnolia, shearing most of one side’s limbs when the mammoth tree tumbled down.

It missed the road, but gave him the warning he carries back to the kids. “Think we’re going to see trees down in several places. Might not be able to travel the same roads easily.”

All three look thoughtful as they prepare packs to take with them, surrounded by romping puppies. “Can’t really use a chainsaw anymore, can you?” Beth muses with a sigh.

“Depends on the size of the tree,” he tells her. “We’ll stop at Arthur’s and borrow his. Anything small enough, we’ll remove. Anything big, we route around. Things look too dangerous, we come back here. Got it?”

The goal is to make it as far as the Greene Farm. Surely the walkers will be gone by now, if the farmhouse is still standing. They can leave a message for the others. If anything of Senoia is left, they’ll make a note there, too.

He rechecks that all three have their little pistols, backup ammo, and belt knives. When they stop at Arthur's for the chainsaw, he watches them as they see the two trees and really understand what he said about storm damage. Back in the Jeep, he sighs. "If I use the chainsaw, y'all will be on lookout and guard. Not as likely to have walkers in the fire area, at least."

As they cross into the blackened land, he's at least right about that. Several humanoid bodies can be seen here and there, all most likely walkers before the fire got them. Unlike living things that run from fire, walkers travel to it. That much is a favor, at least.

Senoia is a complete loss. Some of the buildings are vaguely recognizable, but only because Beth grew up here. She sniffles a little from her spot in the front passenger seat, pup held close to her chest. Shane lets her be, concentrating on the road, but Sophia leans forward, hugging her around the seat.

When they reach the turnoff to the farm, Shane stops the Jeep. He already suspects what they're going to find. On either side of them, signs of the fire scar everything, with only the largest trees still standing. Whether or not they'll recover, only time will tell.

"We don't have to go look," he offers, looking at the two girls. 

Beth shivers but shakes her head. "I want to know."

It's the least he can do for her, so Shane turns down the long drive. The sight is a grim one. The historic farmhouse is in ruins, only two of the three brick chimneys still standing. All of the outbuildings are gone, piles of burnt wood. He wishes they hadn't come as Beth starts crying in earnest. Shane and Carl lean in, adding their comfort to Sophia's as best they can.

"Well, now we know," Beth mumbles, after blowing her nose on a tissue Sophia offers her. "Guess we keep looking, and at least they weren't here."

The lack of any burned out vehicles supports Beth's theory, so Shane just suggests she might want to sit in the back with the others, waiting for her to settle in the middle seat surrounded by friends and puppies before leaving. He has to stop to use the chainsaw before they reach the blocked highway. A fire damaged hickory tree didn't outlast the storm.

The jam is another dead end, cars fire damaged as the fire had enough power to cross the highway here. They continue, searching the area and finding nothing but the fire's ravages. All of Coweta County seems gone under the elemental's hunger.

"What do we do now?" Carl asks, sounding exhausted. 

Shane stops the Jeep so he can turn and face the kids. "We go back to my place and make it as safe as we can. Then we hope someone thinks to come looking for us." He sighs deeply. "I am sorry. I promised to find them."

Sophia gives him a wavering smile. "You did look. It's not your fault about walkers and fires. Plus they say in school not to keep wandering if you're lost, but to sit still until you're found. We're gonna sit still."

When the other kids nod in agreement, Shane feels relief he didn't expect. Failing the kids is not an option. But the more they drive around, the more risk he takes ending up trapped in something he can't get them out of.

With a heavy heart, he sets course for home.

~*~*~*~*~

Being trapped in the quarry for four days of almost constant rain makes Glenn realize they have to find another home base. As everyone dodges the mud to venture outside, he calls for their attention and announces they can't stay here.

"Where do we go?" Dale asks. He and T-Dog are the only ones really paying attention. Rick is such a shadow of himself that Glenn wonders if he should be concerned the man will turn suicidal like Jacqui and Andrea.

"There's a state park not far from Atlanta that could work. There's a lake to fish in, and maybe places Otis can hunt. It's north of where the farm was, so T-Dog, Maggie, and me can keep looking for the others and gather supplies, too." At least he hopes Maggie will manage. Her grief has him worried.

Dale glances at Rick, who is back on top of the RV on watch, but seems to understand why Glenn doesn't include Rick in planning, here or at a future location. "How far is it from here?"

"Less than twenty miles. I went camping there once with some college friends." That trip doesn't compare to the unending camping trip since the world ended. "They have furnished yurts."

Since no one argues, Glenn actually gets everyone loaded up and on the move before noon. Even Maggie and Rick show some sparks of life at having a goal to aim for. Driving the wrong way on the freeway, they reach the proper exit within an hour of leaving the quarry. There's a bit of a hitch in having to clear out a half dozen walkers, but the park is reasonably intact, and the fire didn't reach this far north.

"Think we could move the yurts to higher ground? No fences has me spooked after the last few weeks," T-Dog suggests as he and Glenn check through the visitor's center. The place has solar power, part of some eco-friendly thing the state is trying out. "This place might hold us all inside, but Jesus it's hot in here."

Glenn thinks over the area and grins. "The roof. It's flat, and we can put them on the roof for sleeping quarters and use the bathrooms down here to have running water."

With that plan in mind, they go to find the others. It's definitely a weird feeling for Glenn to realize he's somehow become the fragmented group's leader, despite being one of the youngest. With his family so far away and Maggie right here with him, he's more insulated from the grief plaguing Rick, Andrea, and Otis.

~*~*~*~*~

Hershel sets the heavily laden basket on the counter near the door as he enters the small farmhouse. After the rain stopped this morning, he loaded everyone up and sought a way back home. It didn't take long to determine the county he spent his entire life in was gone, turned to charcoal under the raging wildfire. With two vulnerable women and Jimmy to look after, he turned back west.

It doesn't take long to find his cousin's farm. There was a time when Hershel thought George was crazy, with the way he holed up on his scrap of land and went off grid. Maybe the man was smarter than his college educated cousin, since there's no way his place would fall easily to even a herd of walkers. Thankfully he has the gate code to the little compound from years of free veterinary services offered, Hershel brought them here in hopes of sanctuary.

It is a safe haven, although an uninhabited one. For all his rants about end times and corrupt government, the reality overwhelmed George, or maybe he got sick. Hershel's just glad no one was with him when he found the dead man hung in the barn, and that the man left his animals loose so they didn't starve.

"How's she doing?" he asks Patricia, who reaches for the basket of scavenged garden vegetables. With the house's third bedroom acting as a prepper's pantry, they aren't hurting for food, but might as well enjoy the fresh food while they can.

"She ate on her own, at least. Still staring off vacantly and not talking, but we won't have to do another IV, I think. I sat her out on the porch to see if the sunshine might do her some good."

Hershel finds that Carol is eating is good news indeed, because he's almost out of supplies to help her. His truck was a mobile office, never meant for long term support. He still intends to take Jimmy raiding soon to find replacement medical supplies. They can't risk being without them. The last few months taught him that much.

Patricia calls Jimmy to come peel potatoes, so the teenager leaves the book he's reading to assist his mother. Hershel takes a minute to check what the book is on his way by. It makes his heart ache to see the Army Survival Manual. It's knowledge the boy needs, so he should remember to encourage him to keep studying.

On the porch, Carol is seated on the porch swing, sunlight bathing her too pale skin and making her look ghostly. Worried despite her progress today, Hershel takes a seat on the swing beside her, setting it to move as he considers what to say. He suspects she can hear them. It would be unusual if she couldn't.

"Carol. I know it seems impossible to survive such pain. I wanted to rip my heart right out of my chest when my son died, despite having two living children to care for. But what they taught me was that I honor his memory best by going on. If I die, that's one less person to remember my Shawn."

She doesn't respond, although he sees her eyes track toward him just a little.

"I did not know your girl very well. But she is the first friend my Bethie has had in a while. Her best friend moved away last year, and they were two peas in a pod so long that neither had many other friends. You know how middle school girls are about their established friend groups. She was very lonely this last year."

It gets him a deep exhale, almost a sigh, so Hershel just keeps talking about Beth, then Shawn and Maggie, and despite how painful it is, eventually Annette. The surprise comes when he feels a bony hand take his when his voice breaks, feeling the grief plaguing him heavily.

When Hershel stops speaking and looks, he sees intelligence behind Carol's clear blue eyes for the first time in over a week. Blinking away tears, he smiles softly at her, and feels like he's done something right when she actually smiles back.

~*~*~*~*~

Months of leaning on others for protection were such a mistake on Lori's part. She spent so many years forgetting where she came from that she sometimes thinks that even Rick has forgotten that her life was probably much like the Dixons before a college scholarship whisked her away. She could never quite look straight at Carol and Ed in the quarry because of old memories.

She should have insisted Ed be kicked out, but she was weak and never did. It makes her as bad as everyone who ignored all her mama's asshole boyfriends in all the years after her daddy died. Pushing away the thought, Lori swings the bat at the walker that lurches her way when she steps out of the rusted old pickup she appropriated for the trip to town. It goes down, and she feels glass crunch under her boots as she hastily enters the tiny pharmacy.

It's clear, and heavily looted, but she's hoping the bandits missed the good stuff while looking for narcotics. Laying the bat on the counter, she sorts through the mess of scattered bottles among tipped over shelves. The benefit of being a mom of a kid who seemed to take on the challenge of having every childhood infection possible by age five is that she could probably recite the entire catalog of antibiotics in her sleep.

Finding what she needs, she empties out a canvas bag that advertises some drug company and stashes her bottles and creams inside. Spying the employee first aid kit, she dumps the contents in the bag, too, glad the looters ignored it. Back in the tiny shopper's area, she clears everything she can salvage, cursing the lack of serious first aid supplies.

Necessity is the mother of invention, she reminds herself, grabbing her bat and returning to the truck. Running over the two lumbering walkers in her way gives her a dark thrill, and she makes her way back to the small trailer park she's taken refuge in. She leaves the pickup parked next to Daryl's battered Triumph and unlocks the front door of the last trailer in the back corner.

"Daryl?"

No answer, so he's still sleeping off her makeshift medication efforts from earlier. Nyquil may not be what he actually needed, but it certainly makes him rest. Lining up her bottles on the table, she opts for the one she remembered being a higher level antibiotic Carl was given after two different ones failed to cure an ear infection. 

She heats up a can of soup, hoping Daryl has the same childhood memories of the cheap chicken noodle soup that Lori retains decades later. Pouring some into a coffee mug, she takes what first aid supplies she's managed and goes down the hall to the single usable bedroom in the tiny trailer.

Daryl's soaked with sweat again, and doesn't stir as Lori peels away makeshift bandages off his left arm, hip, and leg. When the Triumph spun out of control in the rainstorm that first day before they could find shelter, she was somehow flung free of the motorcycle. She's nursing bruises that paint her a rainbow of purple and yellow, but it's nothing that judicious use of ibuprofen doesn't handle. Daryl wasn't so lucky.

The broken arm meant he was unable to pilot the Triumph, which meant Lori admitting something she never would in other circumstances. She knows exactly how to drive a motorcycle, although never anything the size of the Triumph. It was enough to get them to this trailer park, with Daryl clinging to consciousness behind her. The concussion still worries her, even though he was relatively alert when awake the last few days. It was only yesterday, when his fever set in, that she began to really be afraid.

The scraps of leftover bottles of medicines scavenged from the other seven trailers were no longer enough. More afraid of being alone permanently than braving the small town nearby, she managed the trip. 

Dropping each strip of repurposed bedsheet into the bucket she'll use to wash and sterilize them, Lori reveals the infected road rash that sheared off most of his skin on his shoulder, arm, hip, and leg. Cleaning each wound takes nearly an hour while Daryl whimpers softly, never rousing. She returns the makeshift splint to his forearm, careful to avoid the skinned spots, made easier by putting antibiotic cream covered gauze pads on the forearm.

Checking the crooked stitches she placed in his thigh where it was gashed open by road debris, it looks less inflamed than his arm. Having jeans on protected him more from whatever bacteria he picked up in the spill. The burn on the inside of his left calf would be much worse without the denim, but it's still frightening.

"Lor?"

The mumbled attempt at her name makes her look up as she ties the clean bandages over the pad she's using to catch ooze off the burn. "You able to take some meds and soup?"

It's a testament to how injured and sick he is that Daryl just blinks and tries to sit up. He stopped fighting her attempts at nursing by the evening of the second day, too weak to protest, especially after she burst into tears and admitted to being terrified of being on her own. The fact that he's completely nude under the sheet is no longer something he tries ro hide. Shoving pillows nicked from the other trailers behind him, she hands him his soup and pills. 

"You went to town, didn't you?" His voice is gruff, eyes fever bright, and all the unerring attention he can manage set on her.

"It wasn't bad. Told you I would turn around if it was. Got antibiotics and some supplies. No good painkillers, sorry."

Instead, she reaches for a zippered pouch and opens it. The scent of decent marijuana wafts out, making Daryl sniff and shake his head. "Don't wanna get high, woman."

From the embarrassed blush, she thinks it's that comparison to Merle that clouds his judgement here. As he watches her in growing astonishment, she deftly rolls the joint. It's been nearly fifteen years, but some things, even years of selective amnesia don't erase.

"My dad died when I was thirteen. Mom had a series of boyfriends, one who was quite the enterprising pot dealer. He used to pay me to help him prep his product, because he didn't think the cops would throw the book at a misguided teenage girl."

"Jesus Christ." Daryl blinks at her, but doesn't argue when she hands him the lit hand rolled cigarette. "And you married a dogooder cop."

Lori shrugs. "Rick knows, although he always pretended it didn't happen. They did expunge my record after I turned eighteen, at least, and the year of juvie wasn't too bad."

Three meals a day and always having utilities? Hell yeah, it wasn't too bad. She even came out of juvie with straight As in all her classes for once. It's something she has avoided remembering for years, though. No one in King County wanted a deputy's wife with a juvenile record for drugs.

Daryl can make that connection, obviously, so he finishes the improvised pain management and yawns. "Wouldn't mind more soup," he says at last.

Smiling, Lori goes to fetch it. The rain is gone, Daryl will recover with the right medication, and now she's proven to herself that she can scavenge for them if they do leave this place while he's still recovering. It's about time she pulled her own weight in something that isn't laundry or cooking. The idea of shedding the false skin she's worn for so many years feels good. Thirty-two isn't too old to finally grow up, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't finish yesterday because we trekked to the mountains at the Missouri border to visit my husband's grandfather's grave. He passed from COVID this week at age 92.
> 
> Well, that chapter kind of grew legs and ran...in a lot of different directions.
> 
> As you can see, I finally settled on a background for Lori for my stories. She's such a contradictory character that there had to be something fishy in her past to make her that way. Voila.


	7. Progress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane encounters adolescent angst, while Glenn's team makes a happy discovery. Both grieving mothers cope with the seeming loss of their children in different ways.

Two weeks pass with Shane concentrating on keeping himself and the kids safe. Although the idea of giving up.the search still makes him lose sleep at night, risking the kids is a worse idea. It's not just their physical health, either, because emotionally? None of the kids are up for the search.

Slowly but surely, they've added a sturdy fence. The kids are surprisingly good at stretching fence with him. It wouldn't stop a herd, but nothing short of the county detention center here is that capable, and he's not even considering putting the kids in there unless he has to. The jail is a failsafe, their fall back, not where they live.

Maybe the time will come where he has to make a choice like that, but for now? It's too publicly known a location for exactly the type of people he doesn't want finding him and three teenagers. So he makes sure no one can access the building or the supplies it holds, and thanks their lucky stars that the late King County Sheriff set every last living prisoner free.

After finishing his final rearrangement of the second bedroom turned supply pantry, Shane stops for a drink of water before realizing the thwacking sound from the backyard archery targets is just a single bow. Puzzled as to why only one of the Musketeers is practicing, he steps out onto the back porch.

Sophia is firing arrow after arrow, landing them across all three targets set up for the kids. He's fairly impressed at her accuracy on the angled targets. Nearby, two of the puppies lounge, and he identifies Sophia's pup Cupcake and the still unnamed Not My Dog by their light colored coats. In the three weeks they've had the pups, they've doubled in size, but they're never going to be large animals.

"Everything okay?" 

Sophia twitches when he asks the question just as she reaches for another arrow. She shrugs, drawing the bow and setting the arrow dead center of the closest target. He reminds himself he needs to work on moving targets next, both with the bows and their small guns.

"Where are the other two?" he asks, thinking he hasn't really seen the three apart since the day Beth turned Annie Oakley in her father's barn.

"Down at the creek." Her voice is so soft and hesitant that he stops before he swivels his head all the way to look toward the creek, studying Sophia instead. Another thunk of an arrow hitting home, and Sophia trots off to retrieve arrows without looking at Shane.

He sighs and looks at the pups. "Any chance y'all know what is going on?"

Not My Dog yawns as he gets up and romps off toward the creek, leaving Cupcake behind. When Sophia returns to her target practice, expression still carefully neutral, he decides to follow the dog. Taking the trail takes him out of sight of the house thanks to a big cedar tree. The other two kids are nominally fishing, but as close as they're sitting, Shane can fill in the blanks of why Sophia isn't down here with them. Only the little multi colored body of Max keeps any space between them. He doesn't see Wolverine, which means the pup is probably in someone's lap.

Well, shit. That was not a complication he anticipated, and is probably one of the reasons he shouldn't be in charge of three teens. It makes him glad he set the girls up in his room, while taking the pullout bed with Carl, though. Sighing, he whistles, chuckling a little when the kids jump. Not My Dog runs back to him, yipping happily at the summons.

"Head back up to the house in an hour," he calls out, grinning as Carl nods and Beth replies with a yes sir. The steep bank on the opposite side of the creek makes them relatively safe, even though the fence isn't complete here.

Not My Dog runs full tilt ahead of him, trips, and tumbles in a blur of brown fur. He shakes himself off and sets off again, going to pounce on the napping Cupcake. A puppy battle ensues, but it distracts Sophia long enough for Shane to catch her attention.

"Why don't you tidy away the target practice, and we'll go for a driving lesson." The place is just big enough to drive up and down his driveway. And a driving lesson is definitely something that sets her apart from the other kids and this little puppy love thing they have going. 

When Sophia's dour expression brightens instantly, Shane knows he's found the right distraction indeed. As she gathers her arrows, he plans on a little heart-to-heart to make sure she's just feeling left out, not part of some puppy love triangle he's definitely not qualified to tackle.

~*~*~*~*~

If Glenn could convince Rick and Otis there's hope in the search, this damned needle in a haystack issue would go faster. Instead, it's still just one group going out. Andrea is a welcome addition to him, Maggie, and T-Dog. But with just four of them, he isn't willing to make the group any smaller.

As T-Dog tops off their tank thanks to finding a couple of viable vehicles, Glenn studies the map spread out on the hood. They've covered everything in a northern arc from the farm. He marks off the latest farm with a sigh. "Anything else worth looking for, Maggie?"

She studies the map dispassionately. "I think Daryl and Andrea reached this next farm, but they got cut off by walkers."

That was the day they brought back the bloodied clothing, Glenn recalls. He marks the spot, almost dismissing it, but they need supplies if the building survived the fire. Due to a shift of the wind, a few of the places east of the Greene Farm aren't burned out ruins. 

Andrea slides a box of canned goods from the house into the back of the SUV. "That's the last of it. How much more today?"

"One more farm, then we take tomorrow off," Glenn declares. "Who's driving?"

It doesn't surprise him when Maggie takes the driver's seat. Driving gives her something to do other than dwell on the likelihood that her father and sister are gone. The farm seems like it might be a bust, because accessing the driveway means going through fire scorched fields.

But the house is still standing, a little scorched, but the fire's shift came just in time. It's the first house with any signs of recent habitation. Glenn's studying discarded clothes in the downstairs bathroom when T-Dog yells from upstairs. 

"Glenn! Maggie! You gotta see this!"

Maggie appears from the kitchen, and they pound up the stairs before it registers that T-Dog wasn't alarmed, but excited. Skidding to a halt, they see the man pointing up a set of folding attic stairs. "These were already down, and Maggie? I think they stayed here and waited out the herd."

Maggie pushes by the big man, climbing the stairs and looking around. While she's up there, Glenn holds up a t-shirt which has enough dried sweat and odor that it merits more distance than he can manage. "Does this look familiar to you two?"

Andrea reaches out to snag the hem. "That's Carl's t-shirt. I remember Lori fixing that rip in the arm to keep the sleeve on."

The absolute rush of hope that runs through all of them gets even greater when Maggie reappears, holding a couple of scattered game papers from Clue. "Read the names." She's crying and smiling at the same time.

Glenn takes them. The little fake paper detective pads clearly have all three kids names and Shane's. "Daryl only found a single shoe and pieces of Carl's overshirt."

"Up there? From the discarded food cans and packets? They were in the attic for days."

Andrea's eyes widen as she hears Maggie's words. "Damn it! We were right there at the far end of the field. The whole property was swarmed. We were so close."

Deciding to dwell on the joy, Glenn grins. "Search for every scrap of clues we can find. If we can prove to Rick that Carl was alive past that first night…"

"Then we can hope they survived the fire, too. Shane was a deputy. He would know how to find a vehicle and to get them to safety." It's the most spirit he's seen from Maggie in weeks. 

Hugging her tightly, they disperse for a scavenger hunt that has nothing to do with supplies, and everything to do with evidence.

~*~*~*~*~

As much as Hershel dislikes the idea of splitting their already tiny group up even further, he and Jimmy go out every other day. The ladies stay in the little farm compound, as secure as he can make them short of an underground bunker. There's even a storm shelter that doubles as that, if it has to. 

The farm's near the Chattahoochee, almost bordering Alabama. The odds they'll find anyone seem slim, but for Jimmy and Patricia's sake, he has to try. They cleaned out a veterinary clinic today, which is good for multiple reasons all the samples if expensive cat and dog food work great for chicken food.

Once they've unloaded the truck, Hershel goes about the latest ritual in keeping Carol anchored as her grief slowly recedes enough for her to begin to live again. Heading down to the garden, he finds the gray haired woman carefully working with the plants, a wide brimmed hat Jimmy found for her last trip obscuring most of her features. "Carol? How's the garden today?"

She smiles when she looks up, or at least as much of a smile as she manages these days. "Plenty of fresh vegetables for Patricia to cook."

There's a basket nearby with today's harvest, and Hershel admires the bounty. Carol's attention span fizzles out at times, enough so that the ladies divided chores to inside and outside. It's just safer for Patricia to do the cooking.

"How are the new plants coming along?" he asks, taking a ripe beefsteak tomato from the basket and inspecting it. When Carol planted seeds she found, after careful study of an almanac in the house, Hershel encouraged it. She needs something to look forward to.

"I'll need to thin the plants soon. We have a bounty." She reaches out after pulling off her gardening glove to run her fingertips across the seedlings. "I hope you like cabbages and carrots."

"I do like both quite well. I'm rather fond of cole slaw, actually." The fact that Carol has steadfastly avoided planting peas is something they're ignoring. Hershel ranks it up there with figuring he'll be happy to never see deviled eggs again without Annette making them for him.

Carol looks up again, just long enough for that tiny smile to appear. "I know a good recipe for that."

"We'll hope for a bumper crop then. How about you come help Jimmy with the new supplies? He's about learned your inventory system, but you know he appreciates the help."

When Carol nods and tucks her gardening gloves in a pocket of the work apron she's wearing, he offers her his arm. With her thin hand tucked through his arm, he escorts her back to the house, already planning on figuring out how to tempt her to eat more. Undoing decades of abuse combined with a mother's grief is a battle he intends to win.

~*~*~*~*~

Lori listens to the muffles cursing from the bathroom with a grin she doesn't bother to hide. Daryl's mobile again, and has been for a couple of days, but not enough to help her prepare for journeying back north. It means he insists on all his own self-care now, even if their improvised bathing means maneuvering around still healing wounds and that broken arm.

She slides the pan of biscuits out of the oven, glad they're his batch and not her attempt. Baked goods have never been her forte in the kitchen. The stew is ready, so she cuts the burner, glad the trailer's supply of propane has held up so far. At least she isn't cooking this pair of squirrels outdoors like early summer.

Ladling out full bowls of the hodgepodge stew of canned corn, green beans, and deboned squirrel with a healthy dose of the spices she gathered two trailers down, she sets bottles of room temperature apple juice by each of their bowls. Daryl appears, looking disgruntled at his unbuttoned shirt, and she intercepts him before he can sit and scowl through the meal because food is the one thing that can make him forget he's left skin bare for her to see that isn't his arms.

"Seriously, Daryl, that horse has left the barn, worrying about me seeing you." Lori sighs as she fastens the buttons he can't manage because of the splint and ongoing pain in his healing arm. They ran out of the pot she was using as a painkiller after a week, and sadly, no one else around had such a nice stash.

"I'm a grown man. Ought to dress myself."

She just laughs and sits to eat her food. The squirrels are stupidly easy even for her to take down, thanks to a scavenged pellet gun. They also have no real fear of her, to their detriment.

"We still leaving in the morning, right?" Daryl asks, after three bites of stew and dunking his biscuit in the bowl.

"That's the plan. Get the bike in the back of the truck, and head north until we reach wherever the fire ended." She sighs, stirring her bowl aimlessly. "Might not find them."

It's a reality she has to face, because there's no telling where the group scattered to. The selfish part of her isn't sure she cares about finding them. With Carl gone, what is there to hold her and Rick together? In fact, as more time passes, she's more and more certain she's carrying a secret that will end things for good.

"Might, might not. Won't if we don't look." Daryl chews a bite of biscuit slowly, studying her with too knowing eyes. "I'm guessing you don't want to tell Rick you're pregnant, do you?"

Lori freezes, but she doesn't know why she ever thought he would miss the signs. He's a single man, not an idiot, and she's been vomiting her guts up every afternoon like clockwork since they've been here. All the other signs are there, too. It's why she didn't just give up when the man across from her found all that remained of her son.

The idea of having a baby in the damned apocalypse is insane. The idea of not having the baby after her precious boy died? It's worse.

"The only way it would make him happy is to lie to him." She raises her head to meet Daryl's gaze evenly. "I'm tired of pretending just to make him happy."

Tucked away here, responsible for herself and Daryl and with no image of Mrs. Lori Grimes to project anymore, she came to realize just how bone deep tired of the act she is. In her guiltiest moments, she's imagined asking Daryl to not bother going north. She knows she needs Hershel, at the least, but she's free here. The only thing that would have made her actually happy these days would be Carl by her side.

"We ain't gotta hurry," he says at last. "Don't imagine they're gonna suddenly jaunt off to Virginia or something."

It's a bit shocking, because she can't imagine him not wanting to offload her quick with her added complication on board. She thinks about the fact that they're a handful of miles north of that Florida border sign. "You ever seen the ocean?"

Daryl shakes his head, looking curious.

"We should go visit. I've haven't been in a lot of years. See what survived on the beach."

Guilt flickers, and she knows it's childish and irresponsible not to look for her husband. But the world ended, and then it took away her son. Maybe it's time to live in the moment, just for a little while.

Daryl leans back in his chair and studies her, gauging her seriousness, she thinks. "A'right. Guess we'll go see us some sand, sea gulls, and whatever other shit those beaches have."

"Sea shells," she says. "Lots of sea shells." God, Carl loved finding shells. Blinking back tears, she firms the decision in her mind to go south and not north in her mind. What better place to remember her baby boy than the place they collected all those shells he had in his room back home?

Watching her with hooded, wary eyes, Daryl nods. "Tomorrow. We'll go find you some sea shells."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline wise: end of August. The children and Shane have been missing for just over three weeks.
> 
> Next chapter will make a big change for Shane's group in encountering organized survivors, just in time for Glenn's group to come close but not find them again.
> 
> Evil Author is still making the poor mothers suffer...


	8. Ocean View

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane and the kids are discovered by someone he least expected to see, and the other three groups deal with searching - or not.

A month after being separated from the others, Shane hears a vehicle for the first time. He plants the ax in a chunk of wood, not even having to give the order before the kids snatch bags, puppies, and scatter. It's something he's drilled them on, along with making it safely to three different safe bolt holes without him. Hopefully, all in the same bolt hole, so he's not playing collect the kids across the county.

While he hopes it would be Rick coming down that driveway, there's no guarantee. He won't risk the kids.

More than a stranger would have been, seeing Merle Dixon climbing out of the passenger seat of the Humvee is a shock. Even more of a shock is that the man's in a crisp, clean Marine Corps battledress uniform, with sergeant stripes on his shoulder and his surname on his name tape. The appearance of two hands is surprising, until Merle lays his right hand on the gate post, and Shane gets a good look at metal and plastic.

"Well, it's good to see at least one of my old campmates alive and well," Merle drawls. "Don't suppose you've got my brother tucked away in your pocket somewhere?"

Shane shakes his head and opts for the truth. "Got separated from the rest by a herd and then a forest fire about a month ago. Decided staying put might be better than roaming around aimlessly."

"Sensible." Merle sighs, pulling off his cap and motioning toward the Humvee. "Got picked up by a fragment of surviving military myself, Marines from the Albany base. They got a Naval doctor in charge as the last officer standing at the base."

"And he's letting you go out looking for your brother?" Shane steps close enough to realize Merle's definitely as sober as he appears. His eyes are clear, and he's well groomed, including being clean shaven. When Shane looks to the driver of the Humvee, she's military, too, looking clean and alert, but relaxed.

"Theoretically, teams are looking for any civilian survivors. Commander says without any higher directives, saving lives is priority. No one's required to come in, but it's encouraged. Not everyone out here is friendly."

Shane chuckles, and as wary as the military makes him after the hospital massacre and napalming Atlanta, he's got to take a chance to get the kids somewhere safe. Merle was a douchebag, but Shane remembers him being reasonably decent to the camp kids. "You can say that again. Shit. Your guys gonna freak out if I set off a flare? Gotta signal the kids to come back."

"Guess that means you ain't staying put, deputy?"

"No real reason to. If you have a map, I can mark areas to look for your brother and the others." Shane opens the gate for the visitors and goes to signal the kids to return. His decision seems to be for the best when Merle spots Sophia trotting back, slightly ahead of her companions.

"The mouseling looks in a lot better shape than the quarry. Being separated from her old man is an improvement."

"He died back at the quarry, so I agree." Should have died sooner, but Shane can't change the past.

"Saw the graves and the burned walkers. Didn't think it was a good idea to desecrate the graves to see if we could figure out who was in them. Saw all my brother's things were gone and the motorcycle, so I assumed he wasn't one of them. Y'all might have taken the supplies or truck if he was dead, but not that bike."

Shane agrees on that wholeheartedly, remembering the swastika, and quickly fills Merle in on the events since the rooftop. By the time he finishes, the kids are anxious, and so is Merle's driver.

"Got a good amount of supplies in the house," Shane finishes. "Y'all gathering those, too?"

"Might as well. We don't specifically grab supplies until we're headed back. With kids, orders will be to do exactly that." 

Six hours later, just as the sun is setting, Shane and the kids roll through a double set of checkpoints in the Jeep in between a pair of Humvees onto a peninsula point jutting off a mostly water protected piece of land south of Tallahassee. He has to admire the idea of setting up on what is virtually an island instead of sticking with the landlocked Marine logistics base.

His biggest concern is being separated from the kids, but no one even suggests it as an option. All three kids are reassured by the community doctor inspecting his healed gunshot wound, and he wishes he knew they'd been worried about it. Even his limp is gone now. Apparently, Hershel did well for his first human patient.

It isn't until she escorts them to an empty beach house that Shane actually puts two and two together. The kids dart past the house, enthralled by the sight of the water beyond the house. The cheerful and friendly doctor who told the kids to call her Cass? She fully introduces herself at the steps when she hands over a heavy binder that looks remarkably like his employee handbook from the department and the keys to the house: Naval Commander Cassidy Barrett.

"My apologies for the subterfuge, Deputy Walsh, but I've found newcomers are more comfortable with Cass than Commander Barrett doing their physicals, and I'm the only doctor we have at the moment."

"No offense taken. Probably helps you get a good read on people, too." It's a trick Shane can heartily approve of. It also makes Merle's care in never mentioning a gender of the military commander seem purposeful.

"There're over a hundred survivors on the island so far, gathered from Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. I'm responsible for fewer lives than I would wish to be, especially considering the populations that should be within easy reach of the Gulf Coast. I'll give you a few days to settle in, then we'll see what sort of work you would like to do. The children will have a combination of school and age appropriate jobs within the community."

"And the search for others?" Shane has to know, because the kids need their families back.

"My teams will continue to look. Merle will take a few days of rest for his team before returning to the field. If you want to join search teams, you're welcome to do so, but I suspect the children wouldn't be comfortable with their only guardian being gone for days at a time."

Shane agrees with that, and they're his responsibility. He isn't about to leave them with a stranger. "I'll leave it up to Merle. If he finds his brother, he's equally likely to find the kids' parents."

Commander Barrett bids him farewell, striding away back toward the place Merle indicated as headquarters. She's a pretty woman, but he would hazard a guess she's nearly his mother's age. Shane weighs the keys in his hand and shakes his head. Pretty women are a vice he no longer needs to be considering.

All of their things have been delivered to the small front porch. The Jeep is down at the motor pool, his to use as he needs it, but vehicles stay up in that central area because fuel is a regulated commodity. Supplies are delivered via golf carts. In addition to the clothes and such they brought along, there's three boxes of non-perishable food supplies, one of fresh vegetables and fruit, and a cooler that he checks to see has frozen items. 

Taking the cooler inside, he finds that the refrigerator is still cooling off. Electric is limited, but they've got the kitchen, and that's the necessary room, he thinks. The orientation was a brief one, crammed around the physical exams. He'll need to make time to go through the binder, which he leaves on the counter.

The house is a nice one, probably a rental though, because he doesn't see the Marines the Commander has left removing any personal effects. This place is too tidy to be regularly lived in. There are three bedrooms upstairs, but he suspects he's going to keep up the same habit as his own house. Keeping Carl close by at night while the girls share seems like the best plan.

Making his way out onto the back deck that looms high above the beach, Shane spies Sophia sitting on the weathered wood, rolling a ball for all four of the puppies. It's amazing how trained she has them already, at least Cupcake and Not My Dog. She's giggling at their antics, so he does a quick check for the other two kids.

"Ah, hell," he mutters. At the water's edge, the missing pair are sneaking in a thankfully chaste kiss.

Sophia snickers. "They didn't appreciate the kissing song, so I decided to spare the puppies' innocent eyes."

Shane eyes Beth and Carl, but they're laughing and splashing in the water's edge. Christ, he has no idea how thorough a talk about basic biology any of these kids have been given. He can't imagine Lori telling Carl much of anything, and Rick? Hopefully he managed. Beth's family being religious is concerning, because that type of family often doesn't sign permission for the kids to attend the basic class about puberty.

His involvement with that was supposed to be making sure the bathroom was stocked for things the girls needed and hoping they sorted it out themselves. Couldn't hurt to have a little chat with Carl, he supposes. That part he feels qualified. Boy's not yet fourteen, so it's hopefully not needed, but the world's turned on its head. Better safe than sorry.

"Hey, Lollipop. Gimme that ball." Sophia's command draws him out of those thoughts, and he sighs. She's got Not My Dog in her lap, wrestling with him over the ball.

"That's not his name."

Sophia grins at him. "Better than Not My Dog, when we all know he's definitely your dog."

"Fine." Shane sighs and crouches, plucking the dog from her lap and making him drop the ball as he licks Shane's face instead. Turning the pup first one way, then another, he smirks. "Looks like one of those dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets Carl used to obsess over. Might as well call him Nugget. That work for you?"

The pup just wriggles happily, still trying to lick him. Sophia giggles. "Sure. Just don't let Carl eat him."

"Brat." Shane plops the puppy back in her arms. "Come help me see what's in these groceries they delivered to the front porch. Best get some food ready to keep him and Cupcake safe."

As he heads through the house, Shane's burden feels lighter than expected. Here, the kids have a support system if something happens to him. If he's lucky, the Marines will find Rick and the others, but until then, he's kept them safe. After all that's happened since the herd overran the farm, that's all he can ask for.

~*~*~*~*~

"Dammit. I was hoping." 

Glenn sympathizes with Rick's frustration. They widened their search area since they found evidence that all the kids survived the herd. One of those little scorecards is riding around in Rick's shirt pocket. Today, sitting around a makeshift lunch on yet another abandoned farm, the idea came up that Shane might have led the kids back home.

"Don't think they've been here," Rick says. "Everything looks like it did when I first came here after the hospital."

"What about Shane's place?" Glenn asks. He has no idea of what kind of place the volatile deputy would have had. "Your place is awfully exposed."

The grimace on Rick's face makes Glenn worry. Maggie frowns. "Something wrong with Shane's place?"

"Only that it's in the backside of nowhere, and he just bought it. I hadn't even had a chance to go see it. Let me see if Lori updated her address book so we don't have to search the entire eastern side of the county."

Rick disappears somewhere in the house, leaving the three others on the porch. Andrea laughs from where she's leaning against a pillar. "Hell of a way to get out of paying a mortgage," she says when Glenn and Maggie look her way.

Despite the worry that never fades with missing children and others, Glenn has to laugh, too. End of the world definitely is one way to wipe one's debt clean.

~*~*~*~*~

The routine at his cousin's place is so mundane Hershel wouldn't know the world ended if it weren't for the walkers he and Jimmy encounter as they try to find any sign of the others. Well, the walkers and the complete lack of people.

They can't go far, because leaving the ladies alone for long, even as secure as the little compound is, worries Hershel too much. Neither woman is a fighter, and Carol is getting better, but she is still more fragile than Hershel likes. As they head back after another day without any luck, he hears Jimmy sigh.

"What if they didn't outrun the fire?" the teenager asks forlornly. Hershel wonders how long he's been thinking that.

"I won't lie to you, son. It's not an impossibility. But we keep as we are for now. Do our best to find them. And if we don't, or we find evidence of the worst happening?" Hershel reaches out to squeeze the boy's shoulder. "We keep your mama and Carol safe."

"That's what we do?" Jimmy's tone is plaintive, and Hershel can't blame him. His own father isn't fit to be called the name, but Otis? He's loved Jimmy like a father should since he and Patricia adopted the boy as a skinny, wary ten year old.

"That's what we do."

Hershel hopes it stays an unknown, if they never find the others. He would rather imagine them out there somewhere surviving and thriving, rather than face the grief of knowing he's lost another child.

~*~*~*~*~

The first few days in Florida, Lori wanders the beach in front of the row of small houses. They could have gone to closer places when they crossed the state line, but Lori drove here. A few miles east of Panama City, to the place they rented on the one vacation they did what she wanted instead of what Rick's parents or Rick's job required.

She's not brave enough to stay in that same little house. Daryl picked one at random, after she said any one except the one that acts as a ghost in her mind. Luckily, there weren't so many walkers here that they've had difficulty putting them down. Even with Daryl's broken arm, she's gotten good at using her machete.

But after the third day, there are no more walkers. The area didn't have much of a population without tourists or the air base nearby. There's no signs of any military in the area, so she assumes they evacuate here like they did the one north of Atlanta.

"Lori!" Daryl's voice is gruff as he limps across the road that separates the row of houses from the actual beach. He's healing, slowly but surely. Even the lack of real medical care doesn't phase him. She suspects it isn't the first time he's mended a broken bone without assistance.

Placing the shell she just picked up in the basket she's carrying, Lori heads toward him. The sand is hard for him to navigate, and she knows he will if he has to. It seems unnecessarily cruel to make him do, since he came on this crazy trip just to soothe her.

"Is everything okay?" she asks, automatically visually checking him for any sign of issues with his wounds.

"Yeah. Got supper ready." He makes that uneasy shift of his weight from one foot to the other that he always does when he's done something nice for her. Daryl's not especially fond of the beach. It's not his world, a place so open and devoid of woods to hide himself away in. He watches her walk the beach from the house, like a guardian angel with a broken wing.

"Thank you." Her fingers find the edges of the shells in the basket, counting them absently. It's later than she thought it was, but she needed to find just the right shells. "Will it hold for another half hour or so?"

"It's stew and biscuits. It'll keep just fine. Where you going?"

Lori faces the small blue house and squares her shoulders. Daryl follows her line of sight and sighs deeply.

"A'right. Lead the way."

She doesn't try to argue. He's not going to let her go alone, and it's not time or daylight she wants to waste. At the door, she turns the knob with a shaking hand, making her way unerringly to the stairs and the front bedroom that overlooks the ocean across the road.

One by one, Lori arranges the shells on the windowsill in the fading sunlight. Each one turned just so, as best as she can remember from all those years ago. Once the last one is set into place, she kneels at the window. "Carl would sit here, staring out the window, waiting on one of us to take him across to the beach. Every single morning."

"Boy liked the water?" She's a little surprised that Daryl responds to her little bit of shared information. Her lost boy is a subject they normally both avoid as much as they ignore the baby she still hasn't confirmed but knows exists.

"God, did he ever. We must have went through a gallon of sunscreen while we were here. Most kids beg to go to Disney World. Carl? He always wanted to come back here." 

Her voice cracks as she thinks of all the times what Carl wanted slid to the wayside. The world ending didn't ruin his world the way it did for adults. Her baby boy could have adapted, if anyone could have. He deserved to have seen a beach again, at least one more time.

Lori cried until she couldn't cry anymore when Daryl found those scraps of Carl's shirt. She hasn't been able to cry since then, eyes dry no matter how much her heart aches for her baby boy. It seems like the dam is breaking now, because her body rocks hard as she sobs. Her fingers cling to the windowsill as she rests her forehead against it. That deep seated wish to be gone, to join her son, rears up and grips her.

When a hand comes to rest awkwardly between her shoulder blades, some of the pain recedes. Surprisingly, when she shifts and turns, needing the reassurance that Daryl's alive and well, the hunter doesn't flinch away. He lets her cling to him and allows her to cry.

It's a reminder that if she'd given in to that dark impulse before, Daryl might not be alive. She wouldn't be so certain that there's another life depending on her to enter this world. Carl would want that, to have his sibling grow when he cannot, so she will make it happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Rick... Missed them by hours...


	9. Looking for Safety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane and the kids get a new roommate, Merle finally locates Glenn's group, and Lori's search for medical care leads her and Daryl in the wrong direction.

Shane hears the kids talking to someone on the back deck as he gets home from his first shift helping build the warehouses the Commander is using to store all the supplies her Marines gather. The buildings they're putting up now aren't even on the little peninsula, but on the mainland just beyond. They expect to be self-sustaining for a while, and Shane agrees with the idea. If the government was going to help - if it even still existed - there would be some sign by now.

He heads for the back deck, expecting to see another kid, or maybe the elderly lady from across the street who brought a pie yesterday to welcome them to the community. Instead, it's a young woman, maybe mid-twenties, with hair streaked with purple dye. She's wearing a full body bright turquoise wetsuit, which seems pretty much overkill for a Florida beach in late summer, and has a mask and snorkel laid on the table in front of her. Cupcake is asleep in her lap, while Max seems to be enjoying being cuddled against her.

Beth spots him first, grinning broadly from where the three kids are clustered around the table on the deck with their visitor, all four with glasses of lemonade. "Shane, come meet Princess."

"Princess?" He arches a brow quizzically.

It makes the woman laugh, even as Shane takes the glass Carl passes him. It's almost too sweet, which tells him Carl was in charge of mixing the pitcher this time.

"I never liked my given name, so I left it behind as soon as I could." She flicks her head, making the purple shimmer. It's pretty against all her dark hair, and Shane suspects he's in for requests from the girls for similar embellishments.

"Why Princess?" Beth looks intrigued as she asks.

"Because Queen sounded like I was old." The chipper reply is a non-answer, but Beth's polite enough to accept it. "I've been assigned to the house next door, which is far too large for one person. Who am I to argue?"

"Max and Wolverine went to visit," Carl says. That probably explains why Princess is cuddling puppies.

"I was just going down to explore the water. I came in with the Marines up from St. Petersburg today."

"You don't have any people?" Sophia asks softly. She looks worried for their visitor.

"Not since everyone started getting sick. Found a place to hide out and stayed til I saw live ones." Princess shrugs, smiling warmly at the girl. "The good side of being a loner before all this is that I didn't lose anyone, not really."

Although she doesn't seem uncomfortable, Shane heads off any further questioning. "Why don't you three get changed and find your sunscreen now that I'm home?"

It's their third day here, and Merle's team is leaving in the morning to continue the search for survivors. The kids helped in the community gardens this morning and attended their first afternoon of classes during the heat of the day. They made it home before he did, but they don't swim without him. 

"Will my snorkeling disturb their swimming?" Princess reluctantly sets the puppies on the porch before finishing off her lemonade.

"I imagine it would be the other way around. They'll probably want to ask you a million questions about how it works." Shane collects the empty glasses to take inside. He glances to the house next door and thinks about the fact this woman's been alone for months, and now she's in a strange place. "You're welcome to stay for supper."

The bright smile she gives him tells him it's a welcome invitation even before she speaks. "I would enjoy that very much. If we can obtain some more snorkeling gear, I wouldn't mind teaching the kids. All this beach should be enjoyed to the fullest."

"I'll check in at procurement tomorrow." If they don't have anything, he'll just put in a word with Merle. Reasonable requests are honored, according to the handbook.

"Do you need any help with those?"

He shakes his head. "If the kids are back outside before I am, they aren't supposed to go more than knee deep without me on the beach." Hell, Sophia's still learning to swim, but she's not the daredevil of the bunch anyway. Princess has passed the vetting of the Marines who brought her in and Commander Barrett, so he's reasonably certain about leaving her with them.

She proves a welcome addition to their little group that evening. While Shane has always considered himself high energy, Princess is more tireless than even Carl. Her cheerful nature rubs off on Sophia, who tends toward being more solemn than Shane prefers as each day goes by and her mother is still gone.

When the supper dishes are washed and put away, he catches her looking reluctantly at the dark house next door. He isn't the only one, because the girls eye Princess thoughtfully. They shared their stories on the beach, about all the missing loved ones, but Princess only confirmed she has no one.

"We have an extra room, you know," Beth says, glancing pleadingly at Shane. 

"You do?" The bright smile that had started flagging is back, and the girls respond to it like sunflowers to sunshine.

"Yes. Shane and Carl share a room, and we share a room, so that leaves one empty. Maybe you can just stay with us, until some roommates arrive?" Sophia joins into the plan.

Shane decides it's not a half bad idea. Granted, he just met the woman, but she wouldn't be on the island if she were dangerous, and nothing about her sets off his cop instincts. Honestly, she rouses the same protective instincts the girls are displaying. When Princess looks his way for confirmation, he nods.

"I'll just go get my things. Although I may shower over there, just to spare the hot water here."

By the time Shane's done with his own shower, the kids are debating some puzzle at the coffee table, and their new roommate is eyeing the master bedroom warily. "Are you sure about this?" she asks, motioning at the large room that faces out to the Gulf.

"Let's just say sharing with Carl is a bit of a chaperone thing," he tells her. "And the other room on the backside of the house has two sets of bunk beds with a full size bed on the bottom. The girls use the master bath, while Carl and I share the hallway one." The girls' room just has a queen bed, but they don't seem to mind sharing in the room that faces the street.

"I can share with the girls. It'll be like a little sorority for us. As for the room, as long as you're sure. Seems like you need the space more than me." She eyes his height assessingly, and it's the closest she's looked at him. It's also the most relaxed she's been around him versus the kids. The more he interacted with the kids, the more her smiles toward him shifted from too bright to more natural.

Somewhere in her past, something's made Princess afraid of men, either in general or just men his size. Either way, she seems to have filed him away as safe, which he's happy about. As much as he liked being big and intimidating with men when the job called for it as a deputy, having a woman fear him just isn't something he ever wants happening.

Even her clothing adds to his growing feeling that someone has been seriously cruel to Princess at some point. The wetsuit in the heat had been odd, but some people do like a bit of protection in the ocean. But when she returned with her things from the other house, she's wearing a pastel green men's long sleeved dress shirt over a bright orange Florida gators t-shirt. The color clash is enough to make someone look away, especially paired with orange and black tiger striped leggings. 

Shane would bet just about anything the choices are as much to make people avoid looking closely at her as quirky fashion sense. Until she's a lot more comfortable with him, he's not asking. The woman's already had a day full of stressful strangers, from being scooped up by a squad of Marines to the mental and physical exam required on arrival. 

"The puppies may wander in the night. They have a puppy pad in the alcove and typically use it, but every now and then an accident happens. It's usually me that finds it with a bare foot, which the kids find hilarious." It's a timely warning, because Nugget is trotting into view.

"I'm fine with puppies. It's so nice to see dogs again, especially little ones most wouldn't bother to save." She watches as the tiny brown Pomeranian explores her room, which the dogs haven't been allowed into before. 

"I can't say a Pomeranian ever crosses my mind as a pet before, but leaving them behind with no mama would have been cruel." Nugget snags the bed's dust skirt and tugs, but Princess scoops him up with a quiet admonishment. She pets the little fluff ball, who wiggles with joy.

Shane leaves him with her, figuring she needs puppy therapy, going to his room to read. When he glances back toward Princess, she's just watching him thoughtfully, like he's a puzzle as complex as that behemoth the kids are tackling downstairs. He wonders briefly what she'll think of him when she does figure him out.

~*~*~*~

Glenn joins Rick in what was once the exercise yard for the King County Detention Center. The older man is starting out at the distance, watching the sun rise. It's been his habit since they found Shane's cryptic note telling any searchers to wait at the jail after repeating a high school prank at the courthouse.

"Did Shane really hoist the shop teacher's boxers up the courthouse flag pole?" Glenn asks, finally giving in to curiosity. Rick had laughed his ass off at the note before asking Dale to donate the only pair of red boxers any of them had.

"Yeah, he did. That was a mild prank, and he never got caught on any of them. At least not officially. I always thought the principal was suspicious, especially of the time his car got relocated to the chicken coop. But busting an all state running back during football season on a suspicion wasn't happening."

Glenn grimaces, knowing someone like him never would have escaped punishment like that. Still, he wishes someone had pulled something like that on his asshole of a principal. That shiny BMW in a livestock pen would have been a sign karma exists.

"Hey, Glenn? Dale wants to work on changing that belt on the RV," Otis calls out. The revived search for the missing kids has given the older man hope for his own family's survival.

Leaving Rick to the watch he'll keep until lunchtime, when Andrea will swap out, Glenn goes to learn something useful in keeping the ragtag group together. If they're lucky, today will be the day someone will come in response to their signal.

They're all eating lunch in the exercise yard, at folding tables dragged outside where there's at least a possibility of a cross breeze, when the sound of engines echoes through the deserted town. Whatever is coming is big and diesel, no stealth about it. The majority of them fade back to cover, while Rick keeps watch.

Three Humvees pull up and out of the passenger side of the lead one steps someone Glenn honestly gave up for dead. He swallows hard, seeing the redneck's grim expression as he approaches Rick at the fence. Gripping the chain link with a prosthetic hand, the big man drawls, "I see you didn't get your skinny ass eaten, Officer Friendly."

Rick's been stiff as a board since Merle appeared, but he nods jerkily. His gaze is riveted on that metal and plastic hand. The rest of the group ventures out, and Glenn watches Merle study them all. "You seem to be missing a few essentials, Officer. Like my baby brother."

As much as Glenn doesn't want Merle's attention, he takes in the uniform and calm speech and decides it might be better coming from him, not Rick. "We got split up by a forest fire. Haven't been able to find a sign of Daryl, Lori, Carol, or three of the Greenes." Maggie slips her hand in his and squeezes reassuringly. Like Otis, she shed the oppressive grief once Shane's letter confirmed all three children were alive and well.

"Damn. Gonna be some disappointed kids if I only bring in half their relatives." Merle sighs deeply. "Daryl's good at looking after himself. Wouldn't be surprised to find him holed up somewhere waiting with the rest."

"All three kids are safe?" Maggie asks, needing confirmation.

"Safe as can be and working on their tans. We need to do a supply sweep, but we can have you folks joining them by nightfall. Be packed and ready in two hours."

Merle heads back to the Humvee after issuing the order, leaving them to stare at each other. Nervous laughter shifts to happy, and Maggie hugs him so tightly he can't breathe, chanting Beth's name softly against his shoulder. After thinking Carl and Sophia dead and beginning to despair that Beth and Shane fell to the walkers, too, they're hours from reuniting. Miracles do happen, sometimes.

~*~*~*~

Today's a bad day for Carol. Even the lure of the garden doesn't get her out of bed in the tiny bedroom she and Patricia share. Hershel goes in to sit with her, taking her hand and opening the Bible he found among his cousin's belongings.

While Carol doesn't respond directly as he reads aloud, her tears dry up and he can tell she's listening. She's never seemed to care what passages he reads, and he still doesn't know if she's a woman of faith. It could just be his voice being soothing.

After an hour, he closes the worn Bible and lets go of her hand. "Gonna go out and see about some fish today," he tells her. "You like catfish best, right?"

Carol nods, stretching as if every movement pains her. "I'll help Patricia. She doesn't like being alone outside."

It's a situational awareness Carol's lacked in her grief, so he's glad to see she's paying more attention. "No, she doesn't, and the garden waits for no one." He pats her too thin hand and smiles. "Tomorrow, I'm going to finish the shooting lessons Deputy Walsh started. It's best we all know how to defend what's ours."

That gets him an actual flicker of interest, and Carol studies him for a moment before nodding agreement. By the time he and Jimmy load the truck for the fishing trip, Carol's dressed and moving slowly across the backyard, basket in hand. One day at a time is all they can ask of her. Hershel's own grief seems to be receding at last, so he hopes Carol is healing as well. They owe it to those that they lost to live the best lives they can, after all.

~*~*~*~

After Lori's breakdown three days ago, she's noticed a change in Daryl. The man no longer shies away from her like a feral cat. He's not suddenly touchy feely, but he doesn't deliberately side step anytime she's close and it doesn't involve his injuries.

They've loaded the truck with everything useful they can glean from the resort town on the island. For just two people, it's a lot. Now they're studying a couple of maps in a big road atlas after supper, trying to decide what happens in the morning.

"Southwest further into Florida is risky as hell," Daryl mutters. "Lotta big cities, too many old farts. Might up our chances of finding a surviving doctor, but gonna up the number of walkers, too."

"And we already know how deserted Georgia is." The part of Lori that dwells in the name Grimes tells her to head north and try to find Rick. The part of her that doesn't know how long she's been pregnant thinks she should be finding Shane as well. A more cowardly part of her dreads either of those, but she doesn't let it run the show.

"West could be different. Places get more spread out. Might have survived better." Daryl flips pages, studying Alabama, then Mississippi. "Don't trust the military, but Walsh had a point about Benning. If any base was gonna survive, my money's on them."

"And if they didn't?" Lori isn't sure what they'd do next.

"Cross the Chattahoochee and we're headed west. Just a detour."

Daryl makes it seem so simple, even as he scratches at the splint on his broken arm. He says it's healed enough for the motorcycle, but she won out on the point that having the truck means more supplies and a place to sleep. They can't always count on finding a vacant house.

Lori rests her hand against her belly, which shows no signs of the life within. She took four tests yesterday, all of which confirm what Daryl first pointed out. They need to find a doctor, and there's a time limit. While she has no doubt Daryl would do his best, he's not capable of a c-section if she can't birth the baby on her own. What he would have to do then, to save the baby at Lori's expense, is not a horror she wants to visit on a man she regards as her friend.

"Benning it is. We'll plan on Mobile after that. Hug the coast line and hope the towns evacuated as much as this one did." Tourist areas mean fewer full time residents and fewer walkers. They're both capable, but they're only two people.

"A'right." Daryl shoves back his chair, going to wash their supper dishes. It's an unexpected habit of his, to switch off chores. If she cooks, he does dishes. If he cooks, he leaves them to her. They don't really have to tidy up, with leaving here tomorrow, but for all his grubby seeming nature at the quarry, Lori is learning that Daryl craves things neat and tidy.

Hopefully they'll find somewhere safe, and soon, and then they'll have help finding their missing family members. As much as Lori thinks she should find Rick and Shane, she needs a medical doctor more. The unplanned road trip will have to last a while longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Princess may be a little subdued in this, but as Shane notes, she's already been through a lot of upheaval that day.
> 
> Poor Lori... She and Daryl are road tripping the exact wrong way to easily cross path with Commander Barrett's Marines. But they'll eventually find a few other familiar faces by heading west.
> 
> Rick's reunion with Carl and Shane, plus Maggie's with Beth, will happen next chapter, obviously.


	10. Not Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane and the kids are reunited with Rick's small group, while Lori and Daryl decide on their exact path west.

Having another adult actually in the house feels weird and welcome at the same time for Shane. Granted, they’ve been here for days, and he has neighbors and coworkers, but that’s different from being solely in charge of three teenagers. Princess joins him to wash the supper dishes, oddly quiet after all the chatter during the meal. Maybe not so odd. She’s obviously more comfortable with the kids than him.

“Do you think they would assign me a job early if I asked?” Princess glances over as she finishes drying a plate and sets it in the cabinet. She’s dressed in some sort of pink tunic thing that reaches mid-thigh, layered over a thin, black long-sleeved shirt and zebra print leggings. The floral pattern of the tunic should class with the leggings, but somehow, it just seems to suit her as much as the full wetsuit she uses to roam the beach.

“Get bored with the beach today?” he asks, smiling reassuringly.

“Kinda. I’ve had a lot of beach time, since things ended. Can’t quite shut my brain off on needing to find food and stuff.”

“I know the feeling. Thought I would crawl right out of my skin after one day here, to be honest.” He really had. The first day had been nice, exploring the beach with the kids. But even before the world ended, he’s was never the sedentary type. Even his vacations involved something active. “I don’t think they’ll really care if you ask to go ahead and work. I took my offered days, but that was more for the kids.”

It had taken all three days for Sophia to feel comfortable being very far away from him. Even now, he notices she won’t venture very far once he’s back in her sight. Carl and Beth seem to have more natural reassurance, both in personality and in the idea their families are safe out there somewhere. Considering Carol’s meek personality, Shane supposes Sophia’s right to be wary.

“You’re very good with the kids. Hard to believe none of them are yours.”

Shane chuckles, passing her the now clean pot Beth used for macaroni and cheese to get rinsed and put away. “Never married. No kids. Honest truth. Just Carl’s uncle.” 

Oddly enough, it’s the separation from the rest of the group that’s allowed him to settle back into the uncle role from the fatherly one he took when he thought Rick was dead. Not having to face his brother and Lori helps, he thinks. Lori swinging between angry and ashamed, and Shane knowing that Rick knows what happened, but his brother won’t bring it up. Rick’s always been good at trying to ignore problems until they disappear.

“Do you think the Marines will really find their families?” 

“Yeah, I think they’ll turn up, eventually. Unless they’re constantly on the move, that search grid they’re using will turn something up.” Merle didn’t mind filling Shane in on all the process. He’d even offered Shane a spot on a search team, even though he’s not military, but Shane declined as long as he’s the kids’ sole guardian. Merle’s never giving up the search for his brother, that’s for sure, because the sober Dixon is boldly honest about needing to make up for a lot of shit to Daryl. This search is the man’s penance, Shane thinks.

“And if they don’t?” she asks quietly.

Shane pauses in scrubbing the last of the cooking implements used for supper and meets her gaze. She has thickly lashed dark eyes, pretty without a fleck of the makeup Shane’s used to seeing on women. A flitting thought makes him wonder if she bothered with any of those extras before and kind of hopes she didn’t. His answer seems important to her somehow.

“If they don’t, then they still have me.” There’s no way he would abandon any of the kids now. It’s as easy as his decision to abandon his post at the failing sheriff’s department to get Lori and Carl to safety.

The answer makes her smile, bright and happy, but she ducks her head and looks away. “That’s good, that they have someone guaranteed to care, even when you don’t have to.”

Before Shane can tackle that reply, there’s a rapid fire knock at the front door that startles them both. Princess hands him the dish towel to dry his hands, although Beth’s already called out that she’s getting the door. He steps into the hallway as the young blonde opens the door to reveal a uniformed Marine, one of the younger, fresh-faced ones. The kid is grinning ear to ear.

“Sergeant Dixon sent me to fetch you and the kids, Deputy Walsh. He brought in a survivor group, but he said to warn you it’s not everyone.”

Shane doesn’t even have to call the kids, because Sophia and Carl are already in the foyer. All three kids look apprehensive at the warning. What could have happened that not everyone is there? Jesus, he hopes he’s not going to have to tell one or more of the kids they’ve lost someone. Looking back toward the kitchen, he sees Princess looking uncertain as she stands in the doorway. “Come with us. Meet some of our people.”

She does smile, although it’s not as big as the one she gave him in the kitchen. “Alright.”

The golf cart is one of the bigger ones, with an electric motor like all the other carts used in the community to save fuel for vehicles going to the mainland. Originally a six-seater, the third seat has been removed to make for a cargo area. The girls pile into the cargo area, leaving Shane to slide into the second row seat behind the driver. Princess sits beside him, rather than the driver, so Carl takes that spot.

“Everyone’s at the infirmary, getting their checkups,” the Marine tells them. He’s got the cart zipping along quickly. Thing was street legal for some golfing community before the outbreak, Shane thinks. They pull in outside the house repurposed for the infirmary, and everyone piles out when they see Merle waiting.

“It’s not all good news, but even what isn’t, ain’t necessary bad news,” Merle tells them, eying the anxious kids first. “They got separated by the fire, so we’re going back out tomorrow to start looking in places your group and theirs haven’t.”

“Who is it?” Shane asks, wondering if the commander would allow them to break protocol in the case of reuniting kids with parents. He can wait to see with his own two eyes, but the kids have waited long enough to have news.

“Far as the kids are concerned, got the boy’s daddy and one of the girl’s sisters.” That makes Shane turn and reach for Sophia immediately. She wraps her thin arms around his waist, tucking her head against his chest. “They can go on in.”

Carl and Beth do spare a minute to pat at Sophia’s shoulders before they pound up the steps past Merle. Shane can hear Carl calling out for Rick all the way outside. 

Merle surprises him when he steps close enough to pat Sophia’s shoulder himself, getting her attention. “Like I said, we’re going back out in the morning, kiddo. We’ll find your mama soon enough.” She gives him a timid smile.

“Who did you locate?” Shane asks. He knows Rick’s here, but it seems so odd that Lori isn’t. How in the hell did they get separated, fire or no fire?

“Your pal Rick, plus Glenn, Andrea, T-Dog, and the old man from the quarry, Dale. Got two more that’s new to me. Girl’s sister and a big fella that don’t speak much.”

Shane thinks that over, realizing that leaves Hershel and Daryl with three missing women and a teenage boy. It’s a tall order for the two men, but they’re capable, and if she puts her mind to it, so is Lori. He can’t assess Patricia’s capability, not with how little he saw of her on the farm, but he suspects it’s similar to Carol. He’ll just have faith they’ll be fine and Merle will eventually find Sophia’s mother for her as he promised.

A distraction from those thoughts arrives in the form of Rick, who barely gives Sophia time to let go of Shane before he’s wrapping Shane in a rib crushing hug. It’s not as good as the first one after Rick made it to the quarry, but damn, he’s glad to see his brother alive and well. “I’m never gonna stop owing you everything,” Rick mutters as he finally lets Shane breathe. He’s crying openly, even as Carl follows and hugs him tight. They can’t seem to let go of each other, and Shane doesn’t blame them.

“You don’t owe me a damn thing, brother.” Shane’s not ashamed to wipe away tears. He looks for where Sophia went, feeling relieved when he sees she’s standing with Princess, who has one of the teen’s hands tucked in her left hand. “This is Princess. She’s been staying with me and the kids, helping me look after them.” It’s only been a day, but the fact that she’s keeping close to Sophia just shows the truth of it.

Rick edges forward with his Carl-shaped appendage still attached, offering a hand to the young Latina woman. “I’m Rick Grimes.”

Princess shakes, offering Rick a cheerful smile. “Carl’s dad, Shane’s brother. They talked about you a lot.”

Shane supposes they had, sharing far more with Princess last night than she had shared with them. No one had wanted to pry into why she didn’t have anyone to lose when the outbreak happened. He can see her assessing him and Rick, taking note of the near impossibility of them being brothers biologically, but she doesn’t say anything about it.

“They put me and Maggie to the front of the line for physicals,” Rick explains. “Because of the kids. Can’t believe they have an actual doctor here.”

Merle’s shit eating grin tells Shane that the commander is still using her “call me Cass” routine, so he keeps the secret for now. It’s amusing enough. The big redneck clears his throat. “Since Miss Princess is already integrated a bit, we’re gonna assign the house next door to Walsh’s for half your group, Grimes, plus the one across the street. Y’all can divvy up how you like on roommates and let us know how you settle it.”

Rick looks to Shane, obviously curious, so Shane explains. “Got the girls sharing the front room at mine, me and Carl in the room with two sets of bunk beds, and Princess has the other. House next door is set up similar. Master bedroom, one other bedroom with a queen sized bed, and one with a single set of bunk beds. Don’t know about across the street.” He’d wandered over to help Princess carry her groceries back to merge the households.

“That one’s just a two bedroom,” Merle says. “Queen beds in both.”

“Not sure what Maggie will want as far as Beth, but might as well leave her with Sophia for now, right?” Rick suggests. The careful way he doesn’t look at the blonde teenager present makes Shane want to hug him again, for not wanting to cause Sophia extra change. “How about we put Otis, Glenn, and Maggie in the two bedroom, and then T-Dog, Dale, and Andrea in the other house? They can draw straws for who takes the bunk beds.”

“Been a few years since we were bunking together,” Shane quips, grinning. Rick not assigning himself a place means he’s decided to stay with Shane and Carl, rather than moving the boy out elsewhere. If Maggie feels like she’s got to have Beth closer, they can shuffle things around, but honestly, Shane will just put Sophia on the bunk above his at that point.

Rick snorts, running a hand over his son’s unruly hair. “Does he still snore like a hibernating bear, Carl?”

“Not if you throw a shoe at him when he starts,” Carl states solemnly, making everyone laugh. 

Maggie and Beth descend the steps in the midst of all the laughter, clinging to each other the same as Rick and Carl, and the new round of introductions and explanations gives him time to check in on Sophia and Princess. They both catch him at it and smile.

He’ll just have faith that if one group survived, so will the others. His third musketeer will be just fine, and until then, Sophia is definitely not alone.

~*~*~*~

Lori isn’t sure what she expected when they headed north for Columbus, but a bombed and destroyed city wasn’t it. They reached it yesterday, but Daryl didn’t immediately suggest leaving. She’s been scavenging enough by now to understand without him telling her that an area this devoid of life probably hasn’t had anyone digging through anything.

It’s nightfall now, so they’re holed up in a little suburban house that was just far enough out to get missed in whatever took out the city and military base. The backyard has one of those insanely high privacy fences, probably to make peeping on the inground pool harder, so they’re outside. The grill these people owned is more deluxe than most kitchen appliances, making Daryl mutter and curse about more money than sense as he fiddles with foil packets.

The neighborhood had a big Methodist church that sponsored community gardens. Everything is so high end that each little garden has picturesque fencing and cute gates. Lori can imagine many a bored housewife like herself puttering about to grow a handful of tomatoes and peppers to be able to brag on social media and at the PTA about the joys of gardening. 

It gave them some late season veggies that escaped the birds, rabbits, and squirrels, though, while Daryl bagged two extremely fat rabbits in one of the gardens that has rows of extremely nibbled greenery. They’ll eat well tonight, and she’s even got a basket of peppers and onions they can transport with them.

“Be best to head south to one of the crossings we saw were still intact,” Daryl suggests as he maneuvers one of the packets onto a plate nabbed from the spotless kitchen inside. She accepts it when he passes it to her, the smell of the rabbit easier on her pregnant state than the spam they’d opened at breakfast had been. Daryl theorizes that wild game isn’t all shot full of preservatives to set her stomach off.

“Yeah. No sense in looking further north when we already know where we can cross.”

He sits down with his own food, still favoring his splinted arm. “Still want to try Mobile first? Could head north instead. Birmingham, maybe. It’s where Morales was heading with his family, ain’t it?”

Lori thinks about that last, stressful day at the quarry, still astounded that Morales would risk going off on his own with just Miranda and the kids. Granted, she and Daryl are on their own and doing fine, but they’re grown adults. “Big city, though. No telling where exactly his people might be.”

“Better than nothing.” Daryl’s already nudging at his food, impatient as he always is for it to cool enough to eat. At least he’s got a fork this time, after she scolded him like he was Carl’s age for burning his fingers on his good hand the other day. She’d expected him to bitch at her about it, telling her he wasn’t her kid to yell at, but he’d just given her a grumpy look and taken the fork without comment. He’s used one ever since.

“Yeah. It’d be nice to see Miranda again.” Even if they can’t find a doctor, having another woman around for the pregnancy would be nice all by itself, and Miranda’s a mother herself.

Daryl’s quiet through a few bites before glancing up at her in that sideways manner of his that means he’s going to ask something personal. “You gonna be okay around those kids, if we find them?”

It’s a caution she hadn’t expected from him, so she smiles as best she can. The reminder of her poor lost boy aches something fierce, but avoiding the idea of other children makes her feel worse, not better. “I’ll be fine. It’ll be good to see kids, honestly.”

He turns enough to look at her intensely, searching her expression to ascertain she’s being truthful. She wonders if he would head in the opposite direction if she said it would kill her to see the two kids again that played with Carl for weeks at the quarry. The part of her that’s getting to know him better each day thinks he would.

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” Crumbling her own packet of foil, she stands, a sudden mischievous impulse making her reach out and fluff his scruffy hair. “Place still has enough water pressure for baths. Gonna go take advantage while I can.”

Daryl ducks away, grumbling, but she catches the ghost of a smile at the touch. “You and your baths. Guess I’ll get one later.”

Seems he hasn’t forgotten that she had to bathe him back at that tiny trailer to try to keep any infection away, especially from the burn he sustained. The scars she uncovered definitely tell her why he avoided being shirtless around anyone at the quarry or farm, and she remembers seeing similar on Merle, who had never been body shy. At least the grubby state he’d been in then wasn’t his normal preference. She really might hose him down if it was, needing to be in close quarters while traveling.

Still, she teases him as she sets water to boil on the grill in a kettle appropriated from the house. The water out of the tap is tepid, okay for summer heat, but she wants some hot water to clean her hair. “Don’t forget to use soap this time.”

“Go get your bath, Olive Oyl.” There’s no heat to the nickname like there once would have been, making it an insult instead of a backwards sort of friendly like it is now. “No telling when you’ll have a whole tub to soak in again and wash that hair.”

Later, when she’s carefully coming her damp hair, she eyes herself in the mirror, wondering once again if the length is worth keeping in a world where running water is no longer a guarantee. It does get in her way something awful, and while a hair tie fixes that for the most part, it doesn’t help keep it clean. 

Searching the drawers in the master bathroom, she finds what she’s looking for and tests the stylist scissors on a tress of dark hair. The scissors snip it off easily, so she eyes her reflection resolutely and begins to cut away the signs of her old world vanity. She’s a decent stylist for other people’s hair, a skill picked up in cutting her mama’s hair when she was younger, but she didn’t usually touch her own other than to trim off split ends between trips to the salon.

Running her fingers through the short locks, she knows she forgot how prominent short hair makes her eyes and cheekbones. The woman who looks back at her in the mirror looks younger somehow, probably because Lori’s not had her hair this short since high school. Cleaning up all the fallen tresses feels like she’s closing a chapter she never expected to, but not in the horrific way she’d felt when Shane showed up looking like his world ended the day he evacuated. Or the even worse way she felt when Daryl stepped back in camp with those blood stained scraps of Carl’s shirt.

“You ought to head to…” Daryl stops mid-sentence, eyes widening as he spies her hair, which now barely brushes her ear lobes. “Jesus Christ, Lori, I didn’t mean you had to cut it all off.”

He looks torn between horrified and embarrassed, and it takes her a minute to think about his teasing words earlier. When she smiles, he just looks uncertain, but that’s better. “It was time for a change,” she explains, running a hand over her head one more time. It feels so much lighter, without the weight of the long hair. “It doesn’t look too awful, does it?”

“Looks just fine.” Daryl’s voice is gruffer than usual, making her look back over at him. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Not boyish like short hair does on some women.”

Compliments probably are never going to be this man’s forte, but Lori doesn’t care. ‘Just fine’ from Daryl probably rates up there with Rick gushing over that little black dress she bought back when they used to try to keep things heated up and go on dates, leaving Carl with Shane for the night. Pushing away the thought, she brandishes the scissors, noticing his hair is starting to get long, compared to what it was at the beginning of summer. “Want me to trim yours?”

It’s definitely a sign of his trust in her when Daryl hooks a foot on the dainty vanity chair between the sinks and drops onto it with a grunt. She grins, taking advantage to run her fingers through his hair and mess it up a bit before reaching for the comb. Maybe they’re one of the oddest pairs that could have fallen together after all those months at that quarry, but being around Daryl soothes her in a way she’s not used to. 

His simple lack of any expectation for her at all causes it, she knows. He’s never given her any of the side looks men always have, and she thinks that probably the only thing that pings her as ‘female’ on his radar is the pregnancy itself. He doesn’t think highly of himself, but she’s learned that Daryl Dixon is one of the best men she’s ever known.

The least she can do for him for being her friend in a way no one ever has is to look after him as best she can, the same as he does for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No POVs from Glenn or Hershel in this. With the reunion, the POVs will start consolidating back down. Hershel's group is just staying hunkered down for now, being careful.


	11. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick comments on the way Shane's changed since the world ended, while Lori considers the implications of her pregnancy's progression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of this story, since the whole Governor storyline doesn't exist, any characters in the Alabama camp are a hodgepodge of Woodbury and River Camp characters of the two Governor storylines. Further notes at the end of the chapter.

Somehow, Shane didn’t foresee that his guardian role would continue past the reunion. To an extent, he and Carl are back to him being on favored uncle status, but it’s different now, after Shane spent months as something just a little bit more than uncle. Rick doesn’t seem upset by it, probably because being a single parent was never something he considered he’d have to be. 

He wonders just how things will mesh if the search teams ever find Lori Grimes. He hopes she’s forgiven him with time and distance, because going back to the strife of the last days at the quarry is not something he can manage.

If still having nominal guardianship over Carl is surprising, he has to admit it’s not entirely surprising that Maggie seems content to leave Beth under his care. The more than eight year age gap between the sisters is a significant one, especially since Maggie’s spent the last four years away at college. They simply aren’t as close as they would have been if Beth had been older. He keeps track of Beth like he did when it was just him and the kids, and Maggie leaves him to it.

The situation helps Sophia not feel so completely alone, because at this point, the girl honestly doesn’t expect to see her mother again. He meant what he said to Princess on her first day with them. Fatherhood never has been high on his priority list, but he’s capable of making sure the girl makes it to adulthood.

They’ve been on the island long enough now to be settled in, and September is almost finished. Winter seems like a vague idea with north Florida’s warmth, but eventually, it’s coming. He hopes their missing people have found somewhere safe to hole up, if they aren’t found by then.

“Guess I don’t have to ask if there’s any news,” Shane drawls when Rick steps out onto the back deck. He’s just enjoying the sun himself, clad only in swim shorts, since Princess is out in the water with the kids. Even after this much time, the young woman still wears a full wetsuit to swim and snorkel.

Rick’s expression isn’t as grim as it was in the first few weeks, becoming more resigned as each time a search team returns with no news. He sighs and sits down at the patio table, rolling his shoulders a bit. “Merle says the Commander would let me go out on a search team, if I wanted to go.”

Shane sits up straight, dropping his bare feet to the deck so he can look at Rick. “Is that what you want to do?”

Initially, Shane refused a similar offer because he was sole guardian of the kids. He renewed the refusal after Rick and Maggie arrived, because he isn’t pawning Sophia off on anyone else. Rick hasn’t shown any real inclination, happily joining the on-island work crews, but apparently the inaction is starting to get to his partner.

“I feel like I owe it to her to be looking.”

It makes Shane feel guilty that he hasn’t felt a similar debt to Lori, but as sour as things were before the farm fell, it’s hard to dredge up obligation when Carl does have at least one parent present now. He doesn’t think she’s dead, not by any means, because the woman’s a survivor at heart, maybe even more so than Shane himself. 

“You talked to Carl about it?” he asks, curious as to how the boy would react. 

“Yeah. We talked it over last night when you, Princess, and the girls were all playing Monopoly.” Rick clears his throat. “It’s a lot to ask of you, to look after him while I go out to look for her, Shane, but if anything did happen to me, you’ve proved he’s always got a home with you.”

“Ain’t asking a thing I wouldn’t do without you ever saying a word, brother. Carl’s family.” Shane’s gaze goes to the kids and their attempts to dunk Princess, while the puppies yap and play in the water’s edge. “Would you prefer to stay? I could do it instead.”

He really doesn’t want to leave Sophia, and Beth to a lesser extent, but surely Rick would look after them the same as Shane would Carl.

“I think I need to do it, Shane, but thank you for offering. I’ve messed a lot of things up with Lori, so I really don’t want her thinking that finding her was an obligation to be delegated.” Rick clears his throat, staring out over the water. “Besides, I know what happened between the two of you and how bad things were after I got to the quarry.”

Shane’s heart sinks somewhere around his damn feet, and he wishes Rick would look at him. Those early days of Rick’s return, emotions had run so high, and the level of asshole foolishness he displayed is something he’s ashamed of. Lori wasn’t innocent, but he was worse.

“Rick?” His distress shows in his voice, and Rick finally turns, studying him with that steady blue gaze that’s always been able to see even the darkest corners of Shane’s soul. He almost asks if Lori told Rick about the CDC, but he can’t. Shame coils like poison in his gut, worse than the hangover that punished him for his actions. “My head’s on straight about that now, you know that, right? And it never crossed my mind, not once, before the world went to hell.”

Euphemisms from them both, because neither of them want to use the stark words that Shane slept with his best friend’s wife. The worst part, to Shane himself, is that he coveted her beyond Rick’s return, and it took weeks of fighting to keep three teenagers safe to clear his muddled brain of the false impression he was in love with Lori. He loves her, yes, but it’s no more or less than he always has because she’s Carl’s mother, Rick’s wife, and Shane’s family.

“I know that, Shane. You both thought I was dead, and the world was a nightmare like no one ever imagined.” Rick sighs, letting a ghost of a smile cross his features. “I had the easy part, I think, sleeping through it all falling apart.”

Relief floods through Shane, that he’s not going to lose his brother. He had hoped, hell, outright prayed, that Rick would understand. There’s a lot of things he’s capable of surviving, but having Rick reject him is probably not actually one of them. “Well, out of the two of us, you do look more like Sleeping Beauty.”

It makes Rick laugh, and his smile widens and becomes something more normal. He does look away from Shane, though, watching the kids and Princess as they start trekking back up to the house. The sun’s starting to set, throwing a kaleidoscope of colors across the western sky. Princess smiles up at them, gaze holding Shane’s, something that keeps happening more and more, before shuffling the kids into the spray of the outdoor shower.

“You’ve changed,” Rick says, surprising Shane from watching the woman below as she scoops up puppies to rinse the salt water off them, too.

“How so?” It’s an odd phrase, especially right off what they were discussing.

“When you first said there was a woman that pretty living in the same house, I honestly figured you saying you were sharing a room with Carl was polite fiction, you know.” Before Shane can respond to that, Rick continues. “Then I realized how new she was here, but I figured it was still just a matter of time.”

Shane supposes he isn’t that same man Rick expected him to be. Commitment used to be nearly a phobia for him. Then the apocalypse landed him an impromptu family, and the idea of not looking after them was more horrifying than the walking dead. Now? He can’t ignore the obvious issues Princess has. She’s beautiful, but she doesn’t need a man just for a night or two.

His lack of an answer seems to be an answer in itself for Rick, who chuckles softly. “I haven’t seen you quietly pine for someone since you had that crush on Sarabeth Morris in sixth grade, you know.”

It’s a name even more obscure than the conversation about old girlfriends he and Rick had in the woods. Sarabeth moved away before Shane ever got up the courage to do more than stare at her across the classroom. Things had been harder then, when his mama was sick. After she died, he never waited for anything. Just saw what he wanted and went for it. Life is just too fucking short.

That makes him blink, and he turns to Rick. “She’s not like the girls I used to date, Rick.” Most of those didn’t even qualify as dates, much less girlfriends. The better term would be fuck buddies, and after everything over the last few months, he’s discovered he’s too damned old for that kind of shit anymore.

Bold, sassy, and endlessly full of cheerful sunshine, Princess is as delicate as the blown glass menagerie Shane’s mama collected. Once he crosses that line, he suspects there’s no returning to who he is even now. It’s danger and longing and promise… and he’s fucking terrified.

“Maybe you should give it a try, Shane,” Rick says, voice pitched low because the woman in question is literally below the deck they’re sitting on. His expression holds a hint of mischief that’s been missing in the tense waiting game they’ve been in about the others being found. “Because she looks at you the same way.”

“I don’t know, Rick. It’s not as easy as it sounds.”

The other man laughs, louder this time, but shrugs. “I know that, better than you do right now.” He leans in, laying a hand around Shane’s bicep, the sun glinting off his wedding band. The grip is reassuring, not an unusual gesture for Rick. “It’s not like you to hesitate. Don’t miss your chance.”

It’s then that he realizes what he should have earlier, the intensity in his brother’s gaze and those words finally cluing him in. Rick is going out to look for Lori, but he doesn’t think his wife is alive out there. He moves forward, wrapping a hand around the back of Rick’s neck and pulling him in for a hug.

“She’s alive out there, dammit. You gotta remember that and not give up.” It’s a whisper, but a harsh one, and Shane squeezes the back of Rick’s neck lightly in emphasis. “Alive. Just like Carl.”

The position is so close that he feels rather than sees Rick nod. “Just like Carl.”

Footsteps on the stairs make them ease back to their original positions, but Rick’s low voice adds one last thing. “Don’t miss your chance, Shane.”

Rick trails into the house after the kids, joining their chatter as they fill him in about their day. As they drift upstairs, Shane knows he’ll tell Carl that there’s still no news of his mother. He almost misses that Princess doesn’t follow them, even though all four puppies do.

“You look awful tense for a man with a beach view,” she says, smiling brightly at him. Her gaze skims across his exposed skin, unabashedly admiring him as she does every single time he’s been outside in nothing but swim trunks. “Guess they didn’t find anything again?”

“No news is good news, right?” Shane asks, needing a bit of her optimism to buoy his own.

“In my experience, yes.” She leans against the deck railing, fiddling with her snorkeling gear. “It allows everyone to have hope, and hope is sure something we need right now. More than food or water or even air. All the rest doesn’t mean much if there’s not a reason to keep going, you know?”

She’s giving him this lopsided smile that makes him want to take risks, so he stands, wondering just how she’ll react if he comes closer. He’s seen her avoid letting most men close, but she doesn’t sidestep him in that careful way of his. Her smile only widens as he comes to a stop much too far inside her personal space to be doing anything but flirting.

“What’s your reason to keep going?” he asks, curious. He knows his, and they’re all inside the house behind him, but right in front of him is the fifth one, if he’s as honest with himself as he should be. She spent months alone, existing and surviving when she had no motivation but what her own mind gave her. It intrigues him, how strong she must be, even under the fragility he senses anytime he gets close.

“Used to be, it was that I wouldn’t be alone forever. I hoped, and eventually, it came to pass.” 

“And now?” He knows, knows without a doubt, that Rick is right about his attraction being returned, because her eyes sparkle as she arches a brow.

“I think you’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”

He’s taken an involuntary step forward, and they’re touching now, so it’s no secret anymore, now is it? The soft kiss he intends is immediately deepened when she reaches up and cups his face, fingers stroking along the sides of his head as she makes a contented noise that makes him wonder why in hell he waited to do this. His old self would have turned it toward something lustful, but he isn’t that man anymore. 

Instead, they exchange quiet kisses, where he can taste the salt from the sea still clinging to her skin and the remnants of mint from her chapstick. Noise in the living room behind them brings him back to reality a bit, but he just smiles down at her. “I like your kind of hope,” he tells her.

Laughing, she takes his hand and leads him inside to face the curious looks of the kids and Rick’s smirk that is equal parts amusement and wistful sadness.

Hope. One day, it’ll kick in for Rick, too. Until then, Shane will just have enough for both of them.

~*~*~*~

When Lori and Daryl first headed for Birmingham, she didn’t hold out much hope of actually finding anyone they knew. It was just a destination to pick with some sort of logic instead of just randomly jabbing a finger on the map Daryl had. The capital city of Alabama isn’t as big as Atlanta, but unlike Atlanta, the place didn’t get bombed or napalmed by the military. 

She can’t decide if it makes the abandoned city even more haunting than half destroyed buildings would, where you have an easy clue that something very awful caused its downfall. Instead, the city looks like a ghost town - at least as long as nothing stirs its real population up. It has its own destroyed refugee center on the eastern outskirts, but the thousands of walkers trapped behind military erected fences tells the story of how it fell. 

Avoiding the walkers makes their search go slow, and Daryl determines early on that no one with kids would cross into the city. They make a slow circuit of Birmingham, carefully mapping out areas to see if any of the suburbs show signs of actual human residents. It takes them two weeks, and Daryl gets captured inadvertently, to find what they’re looking for.

Lori doesn’t find out if she could pull the trigger that day, because one of the men spots her in the treeline of the house Daryl was inspecting. Where the men are angry and hostile toward a man all alone, they relax when he’s part of a couple. It’s even more pronounced when they realize she’s pregnant.

They’re led to an RV park nestled along a river, where it’s been fenced in by a patchwork welded together metal panels and abandoned large vehicles like buses. With the river at their back, it’s a nice setup, supporting a community of about thirty-five people. The best news is being introduced to Dr. Stevens, who converted the RV park’s old office into a small infirmary for the camp’s use.

The second best is finding out that the Morales family made it safely to the Birmingham area. Although their family didn’t make it, aside from a teenage nephew, at least Lori can see that Eliza and Louis are safe. It’s also nice to be friends with Miranda again, and she missed the drama and stress of the CDC and Hershel’s farm. Lori’s ashamed enough of her behavior to not want extra reminders.

“How did your ultrasound go with Dr. Stevens?” Miranda asks, bending to take another wet shirt from her laundry basket. Their setup here is more permanent than the quarry had been, with someone rigging up a hand pump and piping that brings river water up and filters it a bit before going into big outdoor sinks to scrub clothing in.

Lori pauses in dunking Daryl’s jeans, wiping at her face, and readjusting her shoulder holster. It may be late September, but it’s still the South, so it’s summer hot despite the breeze off the river. “Good. She says the baby is growing just fine.”

The infirmary hadn’t had an ultrasound machine before Lori and Daryl’s arrival, but he’d gone with some of the others to raid a birthing clinic in Birmingham for all the supplies the doctor wanted. They don’t run electricity to the RVs, saving the generator for the infirmary, the big freezers in the old restaurant, and the water well, but Lori’s grateful they have this much.

What she doesn’t volunteer to Miranda is that she’s too far along for the baby to be Rick’s, which is honestly what she suspected anyway. The woman probably knows she and Shane were sleeping together at the quarry, but Miranda’s too sweet natured to bring it up. She’s eighteen weeks pregnant now, and it still astounds her that she lost one child only to be given another. Carl would have adored being a big brother, she thinks, and the thought doesn’t hold the intense pain it did when she first suspected she was pregnant.

“That will be one spoiled baby, you know,” Miranda remarks, her smile a little sly as she glances at Lori.

“Why do you say that?” Lori knows she’ll have a hard time not spoiling the baby, and she prays the camp stays safe as it seems to be. The walls have held and repelled even good sized herds when they drift out of Birmingham, so she’s hopeful.

“Because even if your grumpy redneck doesn’t find your husband, he’s already appointed himself that baby’s guardian angel, you know.”

Lori swallows hard and nods. It’s not just the baby’s guardian angel, because Daryl’s got this quiet way of noticing things that Lori herself needs and just making sure they appear, like maternity clothes. Even this continued search across the border into Georgia is part of it. He’s gone on his fourth trip now, leaving clues at places along the border, since he figures at some point, Rick has to wander far enough west to find them. Since he always brings back wild game of some sort, the camp leader encourages him.

She suspects that if not for the baby, he probably would stay on the road for longer periods. He’s still looking for Merle, after all, but there’s even fewer signs of the older Dixon than there is of Rick. Shane is never mentioned, not after Daryl admitted he doesn’t think the other deputy or Beth survived the herd that took Carl and Sophia. For all that Shane and Daryl didn’t get along, the redneck thinks there would have been a sign of him before that fire.

“Yeah, I guess he has.” The idea of gruff, often crude, Daryl with a baby is endearing in a way she probably shouldn’t consider. They share an RV, because even with people they know vouching for the camp leadership, Daryl balked at the idea of venturing very far. Even the trips worry him, because on two of them, he’s been caught out overnight even with the motorcycle.

Miranda just laughs, taking the wrung out jeans from Lori and hanging them up on the line Lori’s using for hers and Daryl’s clothes. “Uncle like that is a valuable resource in this world, isn’t he?”

Lori nods, reaching for the last item in her dirty clothes basket. Daryl’s taught her, even taking her out since they’ve come to this camp, but there’s still so much to learn. Vague memories of similar activities with her father, when he was alive, just aren’t enough after so many years of pretending she didn’t come from the background she did.

As if gossiping about him summons the man in question, Lori hears the unmistakable sound of the Triumph. The gate’s half a mile away from where they’re doing laundry, but none of the other engines sound like the motorcycle. 

Miranda shoos her away from the laundry sink. “I can wash a single shirt for you. Go see if he’s brought any news.”

Thanking the other woman for her kindness, Lori dries her hands and treks over to the place where they clean wild game and any fish caught from the river. Daryl’s parked the bike, and from the looks of it, he brought back a deer this time. Everyone in camp will be happy tonight.

Daryl meets her gaze when he’s helped Martinez hang the deer to finish the field dressing job he did, and she doesn’t need any words to confirm that today’s trip was unsuccessful in the larger goal. Martinez sees their shared disappointment and clears his throat.

The Latino man is camp leader in much the way Shane became leader at the quarry. No one else really wants the responsibility, and he was in the military for single enlistment before he used his GI Bill to become a teacher and sports coach. It’s as much qualification as any, although if any really big decisions come up, he tends to consult others, like Dr. Stevens.

“Got plenty of helpers to butcher the deer, Dixon. Why don’t you go get cleaned up? We can talk over anything you need to report in later.”

Taking the offer, Daryl takes the time to rinse off the motorcycle where he had the deer tied behind him like it was a creepy sort of passenger. Drying the seat, he pats it for Lori to ease astride. It makes the ride back to their particular RV pass quickly, although she’s always amused when he lets her drive while he sits behind her.

Daryl’s first question once he’s out of the tiny shower is similar to Miranda’s. “Did Dr. Stevens get the ultrasound done?” 

His intent expression makes her smile, and she nods. She’d offered for him to come with her, but he’d gotten flustered and said it wasn’t his place. Reaching for the paperback where she tucked the ultrasound photos, she offers them to him. “She says baby’s measuring for eighteen weeks already, and it’s a girl.”

The man’s smile is actually unexpected as he looks between the two prints. “Girl sounds good. You can raise her up to be a real lil asskicker.”

“We’re not calling her that.” Because the more she gets to know Daryl, she knows the seemingly crude or insulting nicknames are a form of affection.

His smile turns shy at the ‘we’. It’s easy to slip that way, because she doesn’t hold Daryl’s confidence in finding the others with a state the size of Georgia to search. She’s confident that nothing short of death is going to split up their partnership, so ‘we’ is just how it is now.

“She say when the baby will be born?” he asks, voice rough and gravelly. “Never was any good at counting that out in my head.”

“Around the end of February, if all goes like it should.” She’s already feeling the baby kick, has been for over a week now, firm movements that are unmistakably a child growing beneath her heart. 

“Got a while to go still.” His side glance to her slowly rounding belly is becoming more common. He’s probably wondering just how big she’ll get.

“Plenty of time,” she agrees. Time for his search to either find Rick, Merle, or any of the others, if they’re lucky. He hands her the ultrasound prints, and she tucks one back in the paperback and puts the other on the tiny fridge with a magnet. 

He’s yawning, a side effect of leaving out before dawn, so she nudges him. “Go take a nap back in my room. I’ll wake you when they’re serving up supper.” She’s not on supper duty today, and that’ll give him an hour or so to sleep. Since he’ll probably take a watch shift tonight, a nap is a good idea.

To her surprise, he doesn’t argue that he can just sleep in his regular place, an upper bunk above the driver's seat in the Class C style RV. She knows it’s not nearly as comfortable as the full sized bed in the back corner of their small home. He must be exhausted, because he just nods and crawls onto the bed, stretching out prone on his stomach and dropping off to sleep with the ease of a man used to snatching sleep when he can.

She takes a seat at the little dinette table, grimacing at the inept mess her scarf is in. Taking up knitting seemed like something handy for the world they live in now, but damned if it isn’t one of the most frustrating things she’s ever learned to do. Unravelling the poor stitches to try again, she can’t help but smile when she catches sight of Daryl sleeping.

Weeks ago, when they first found themselves cut off from the others, the man never would have allowed himself to sleep in a vulnerable position around anyone. Now? She’s proven herself to him enough that he trusts her to watch his back while he sleeps - and to not harm him her own self.

It’s a bit of a heady feeling, earning his trust, and more importantly, keeping it. She trusts him equally by now, and he knows it, but she’s not yet admitted to him that she thinks all the hope he holds out for finding the others is going to come to naught. Daryl needs that hope to keep him going, just as she needs a different sort of hope.

Lori will have a daughter, whether the child’s father or stepfather are ever found, and there’s a hope in such a new life that makes her think that somehow, they’ll survive this nightmare world. Her, Daryl, and Lil Asskicker will be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather than come up with a host of OCs around the Morales family near Birmingham, I've just appropriated (as needed) any Woodbury or River Camp characters, as noted above. Few, if any, will actually have impact on the story as a whole, so expect small cameos here and there, but not much else.
> 
> I'm adding the Lori/Daryl tag and bumped the rating to M for future chapter plans. Right now, I'm still fiddling with the plot to decide if that will be before or after Judith's birth. Either way, the Alabama camp won't be found before the baby arrives, unless I drastically change my outline. While I told a reader I might give them their own story, I've decided to continue the dual POV format that has taken over in the last two chapters. Future chapters will split between Shane and Lori like this one, since those are the two storylines that seem to be perking up interest.
> 
> While this chapter focused on Shane and Rick, with a teaser for the Shane/Princess relationship, going forward, Shane's POV will focus on their pairing and how it develops from this chapter's admission of interest to actually being a couple. I want to make it a different progression from Princess's other storyline in the Grenade series.
> 
> While Daryl and Lori probably won't be found until February or so, Hershel's group will definitely be discovered prior to Christmas, so Shane will get to play guardian to the girls a while longer. We'll probably see a wee bit more of the teenybopper Carl/Beth romance for that, too. :)


	12. Love is Confusing, Part 1 of 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Autumn temperatures bring preparations for winter, while Shane and Princess's relationship keeps advancing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There be smut ahead in this chapter...

As October’s back and forth weather reminds everyone, northern Florida still has some interesting low temperatures, a fact that will only be reinforced when winter fully arrives. The downside of a community where a considerable number of the homes were vacation rentals is that they all relied on central heating for when the temperature dips below sixty. Most of the houses that do have some sort of fireplace have a gas fireplace.

It’s how Shane ends up spending the last two weeks of October on a steady installation of wood burning stoves into occupied quarters. Layering up and bundling up on the rare colder night is fine now, but it won’t work out as well later, especially when there are several households with small children. It’s why he’s actually glad all the kids from his group are still staying in one house, since it gets them on the upper echelons of the installation list.

“That one will keep the whole floor warm?” Sophia asks, looking curious as she hands Shane tools. The woodstove is positioned near the top of the staircase, and the girls’ room will get the best benefit from it, since it’s oriented toward their doorway. The hallway on the upper floor is pretty small, so he doesn’t doubt the other two bedrooms will be warm enough either.

“Yeah. Long as we build up a good little fire on cold nights, it’ll be fine.”

“What about downstairs?” Since there is already a gas fireplace downstairs, that area isn't a priority yet. During the day, they’re mobile enough right now there shouldn’t be an issue.

“It depends on whether or not we can get propane in.” That’s the one good thing about their little safe haven not having natural gas access before everything turned. What fireplaces they do have here are all propane. “It hasn’t been a priority yet for heating purposes. The Commander is having it stockpiled, but right now, it’s a backup for the emergency generators for the community storage and the infirmary.”

“So if the other power systems fail, we don’t lose everything in the freezers, right? Or not have power when someone’s sick?”

“Exactly.” Shane finishes up, while Sophia neatly packs his tools away. She’s out of school, but instead of roaming the beaches with the other older kids and teens, she’s been tagging along with Shane and the older man he’s been partnered with for the project. “Plus we can always cut and season more firewood, but once the propane stocks run out, they’re gone. Just like fuel for the vehicles.”

He’s overheard some of the plans that eventually, they’ll work on converting to biodiesel and ethanol, once priorities shift from finding survivors and shoring up the community. But he figures they’re at least a year or two off those plans. Overhearing him just reassures him that he made the right decision in bringing the kids here, since the Commander isn’t just about survival at bare minimums.

Once they’ve put away the toolbox and both cleaned up, Shane nudges Sophia. “Not that I mind you tagging along and learning, but is there a reason you haven’t been hanging out with the other kids?”

He’d thought once it wasn’t just the three musketeers, Sophia wouldn’t feel so much like a third wheel, but with easily a dozen kids near her age around, she’s stayed reserved. It’s concerned him a little, considering her background. A lifetime of keeping to herself because of Ed is hard to undo, he suspects.

“I like spending time with you, and learning useful things.” Sophia squirms a little but meets his gaze evenly. “And they all talk about things and people they miss all the time.” She sighs softly. “Am I a bad person that I’m glad my dad’s gone?”

“No, sweetheart, you aren’t.” There are times that Shane wishes he’d beaten Ed sooner than he did. “But that’s probably hard to explain to the other kids, isn’t it?”

She nods, blonde hair bobbing around her face. It’s starting to get long enough to braid, which she often asks Beth to do for her. “Yeah. Beth still cries at night sometimes, missing her mom and dad and brother.”

Ah, hell. Shane hadn’t realized that. He’ll have to talk to the girl, and maybe see what Maggie thinks, or Rick when he gets back from his current search trip. “One day, we’ll get lucky and find Beth’s dad and yours and Carl’s moms, Sophia.”

“You keep saying she’s alive,” the girl responds. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I think your mother is a lot stronger than anyone gives her credit for.” He still remembers how cool Carol was under pressure at the CDC, remembering that grenade in her purse. “And I doubt she’s alone. We’re still missing a lot of people, remember?”

“Yeah.” Voices outside draw Sophia’s attention for a minute. “Are you and Princess gonna get married?”

It’s the sort of question only a teenager who hasn’t lost all her hope in people can ask, he thinks. “I think it’s a bit early to be thinking on that,” he replies, honestly.

She accepts the answer, going to check the menu stuck to the fridge with magnets. With food plentiful but rationed, Princess had made a game of menu planning with the kids with each week’s issued food. They do end up with a surplus at times because Rick cycles into the household for an equal number of days that he spends out. He’s due back tomorrow, if plans don’t change.

“It’s not your turn for supper duty tonight,” he reminds her. How much of Sophia’s need to be useful is innate and inherited from her mother, and how much is from living under Ed’s rule, Shane doesn’t know. He does know that she needs regular reminders not to do the other kids’ chores. “Why don’t you go help wrangle the puppies? They’ll be grubby after playing in the water.”

As much as he likes the little fluff balls, far more than he ever expected to, they’re definitely high maintenance critters. He’s honestly a little grateful that Nugget’s mostly abandoned him for Princess these days, and not just because she seems to really enjoy the little dog’s companionship. Sophia’s question about the future sticks with him past the kids’ bedtimes. 

With Rick gone, it’s just him and Princess, and she’s snuggled close, settled into the vee of his legs with her back to his chest. The temperature is definitely dropping tonight, with enough of a chill creeping in that they’ve got a fleece blanket thrown across their legs. He’s far more content with the glacially slow pace they’ve been taking things than he would have ever thought himself capable of being.

Brushing aside her hair, he leans in to press a kiss in the tender spot behind her ear, enjoying the intake of breath it causes. She likes being kissed, especially something soft and unexpected, and she has such a delight in it that he keeps looking for ways to ease those little happy gasps out of her. 

“We could go upstairs,” she offers, voice husky. “I think we’re well past the third date stage.” With spending every day together, she’s technically right. Old world dating can’t really apply, and even if it did, living together sort of negates all of that anyway.

Shane knows that offer’s been open since the beginning. She’s also been a little puzzled, he thinks, as to why he hasn’t ventured into her bed. Considering he’s not entirely sure how to explain the concept of wanting the slow romance he’s never bothered with before, he hasn’t tried. The other half of the issue is that she’s never broached the subject that she’s obviously survived violence of some sort, and he fears that’s going to be a minefield in its own right.

He’s needed to prove to himself that he has the patience for it, especially considering this isn’t like it used to be, where his reputation as a ladies’ man generally kept any woman who already knew him from expecting anything more than a week or two of fun. The man capable of that sort of shallow connection to others died in the hospital room when he thought his brother was gone forever. He can’t admit pride in what he became after, though.

After what he did at the CDC, crossing any boundary of decency with Lori, he had to learn to trust himself and his self control. He did tell Princess in detail what happened back then, the day after he first kissed her. She deserved to know the darkness he might be capable of, especially with how wary of men she was when she first met him, although he never intends to be that bastard again.

“Alright.” His soft agreement, spoken against her skin, has her twisting to study him.

“You sure?” Dark eyes meet his, and he smiles, tugging her in for a kiss instead of a verbal answer.

The master bedroom isn’t a surprise to him, not even after Princess took up residence. With just two bathrooms upstairs, he shares it with her and leaves the smaller jack-and-jill bathroom for the kids. Rick typically uses the downstairs bathroom for his showers when he’s home.

But the room has changed from bland rental decor to slowly reflecting the personality of the woman who lives there now. Mosaics of shells grace the walls, and another wall has been turned into a half-finished mural that’s the project of Princess and all three kids. It’s surprisingly realistic for a quartet that loves comic book characters so much, a sailboat amongst dolphins at sunset.

It’s her cozy safe haven, and kissing her here changes things between them. It’s no longer sweet and tender, confined by the knowledge that they’re in an area where any of their family can walk in at any minute. With her door closed, Shane knows nothing short of imminent disaster will get them interrupted.

Peeling away her layers of shirts, he makes sure to trail kisses along each scar he finds, because everything he suspected about her reluctance to show bare skin is true. Her skin is a testament to a hard life, one that prepared her to survive in this world. He pushes away the anger that it sparks in him, because there’s no place for that in this room.

“I know they aren’t pretty,” she mumbles, but she seems fascinated with the attention he pays to the imperfections on her skin.

Shane runs a thumb along one that’s an obvious burn mark before following it with his lips. “They aren’t ugly, either.” 

It’s the right thing to say, because the shy tension in her body relaxes at that. “I didn’t grow up around good people.” Sighing, she shakes her head. “Not after my father was gone, anyway. My mother thought being alone was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. My stepfather and stepbrother hated me, and I never understood why.”

He supposes that explains why Princess was willing to be completely alone in the world even with the dead walking rather than risk being with the wrong people. “Some people are just born assholes, I suppose. Having been one most of my life, I still can’t imagine hurting a child just for existing.”

Princess smiles warmly, slipping her hand under his shirts to trace along his spine. “Considering you trekked around Georgia with three children, two with no real relation to you at all, I believe you. It’s one of the things that caught my attention, especially when you didn’t dump them off on someone else at first opportunity.”

Although Shane starts to deny he did anything special once he arrived here to safety with the kids, he does know he could have easily asked the Commander to find a foster family for all three kids. “I couldn’t just abandon them. They trust me to look after them.”

The knowing smile on her face makes him arch a brow, and her free hand takes one of his to trace the worst scar she has across her ribs. It’s a surgical scar, from having rib fractures repaired, and he honestly hopes that her ‘family’ was alive and well when the world ended, just so they could be eaten. It would be a fitting end for them.

“I trust you to look after me, too,” she tells him, and he smiles, taking the reassurance as he presses kisses along her throat.

Fingers tangle in his curls as he eases her back onto the bed so he can start on her belt buckle. He laughs and nips gently at the swell of one of her breasts above her bra line, enjoying the sting when she involuntarily tugs at his hair. “Gotta let me go for a minute, darlin’.”

Princess laughs, complying reluctantly. She pushes up on her elbows to watch as he sheds his shirt and undershirt. “It is a crime to make you wear clothes,” she mutters, eyeing him with open attraction. 

She drops back to the bed, hands making quick work of her belt and jeans, unzipping her sports bra and dropping it in the floor as well. It leaves her in nothing but a pair of constellation themed boy shorts that accentuate strong thighs. There’s less scarring on the front of her legs, but he can see the edges of scars that likely decorate the back of her thighs that are more visible because of her darker skin.

“Leave those,” he requests, kicking his own jeans aside. She drops her hands back from her waistband, watching as he steps back close in only his boxer briefs. Running his hands along her legs to brush against the fabric of her underwear, he smiles slyly. “I think it’s more of a crime to keep you all covered up, but I won’t complain.”

“Possessive much?” she teases, arching as he reaches sensitive flesh through thin cloth.

“Funny enough, I never used to be.” He kisses her, enjoying the sweet taste of her mouth before lifting her to move her further onto the bed. She shows no hesitation over him hovering over her, which makes him feel a sense of relief he didn’t expect, but he hasn’t forgotten her careful wariness around him when she first came here. Her trust is a precious gift, one he doesn’t intend to squander.

When he presses himself against her, full contact still barred by two layers of cloth, she whimpers, arching her back just a little. They’ve been waiting a while for this, so he’s in no hurry. Instead he explores, fingers and lips and tongue covering soft skin until she’s begging, her fingers back in his hair and urging him along. Finally, he slides fingers under the waistband of her panties, groaning when he finds just how ready she is.

She rides his fingers as he latches onto one of her breasts, sucking the nipple into his mouth even as his thumb flicks across her clitoris. The cry of his name as she arches against him makes him smile, raising his head to watch her as her body shudders through its pleasure. When her eyes open again, she blinks lazily at him, a slow smile gracing her pretty features. “Is that all?” she drawls slowly.

“Jesus Christ, woman,” he half-growls, half-laughs. “You’re gonna be insatiable, aren’t you?”

The amusement carries him through getting them both naked at last, but he doesn’t expect her to have the sense of urgency she does. Being pushed to his back is fine with him, especially when it involves her sinking onto him with little warning. Her body is already pleasure sleek, yielding to him being inside her as if this is their hundredth time together and not the first.

Princess sets a demanding pace, needing little assistance from him. Instead, his hands seek out her breasts, kneading them as his own arousal seeks a crescendo. When she climaxes again, her body clenching around him, it drives him over the edge. By the time he can breathe normally again, he doesn’t really want to give up the warm weight of her on top of him, but they can’t sleep quite like this.

Reluctantly, Shane goes to find a warm washcloth, cleaning them both up enough for sleep. With three teenagers in the house, they don just enough clothing not to be indecent, and reopen their door. The room got a bit cold while cut off from the woodstove’s heat in the hallway, so they’re both chilled when they cuddle under the blankets, Shane spooned around Princess.

Yawning, she eyes the door. “Will Carl be worried if he wakes up and you aren’t there?”

“Nah,” Shane answers, nuzzling the soft spot behind her ear that started tonight’s escalation of their relationship. “He’ll know where I am.”

Content with his explanation, Princess is drowsy and sated enough to fall asleep quickly. Shane just enjoys the sensation of her tucked against him. It’s not something he ever thought to cherish in his old life, when a woman did stick around long enough for overnight visits. Now? He’s just grateful he’s no longer so shallow he can’t appreciate the woman in his arms. Maybe he confused lust and a need for family with love where Lori was concerned, but he knows better.

This is love, and if the first declaration is whispered into a sleeping woman’s ear, Shane promises himself that the next time will be when she can hear him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 will be out in the next day or so. No waiting 2-3 weeks for it, I promise. Shane's POV just ran too long to share with the others.
> 
> Lori's POV may not be a full chapter, but if it does become one, there may be a part 3, where I revisit Hershel's group for a small update, plus Rick and Merle will each get a POV.
> 
> I do have a quandary with the story as currently planned. Without Carl there to name Judith, she wouldn't be named Judith. I know I've gotten a whiny review about Lori's pairing by an anti-Lori reader, but for those who do actually like my version of Lori, is it really essential that Lil Asskicker actually be named Judith? I mean, I could make something up for that name to happen anyway... I was actually considering acknowledging her paternity and giving her some variant of 'Jean' after Shane's grandmother. An alternate would be that in my fics about Shane, his mother is typically named Sybil.
> 
> Edit:. Good suggestions so far! 1) make Judith a family name for Lori, 2) make Lori remember Carl had a crush on his teacher named Judith, 3) name her Charlotte for Carl and let Daryl call her Charlie to tease Lori.


	13. Love is Confusing, Part 2 of 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lori enjoys Halloween at the River Camp, while Daryl brings her a present back from his latest search for their missing people.

It’s almost Halloween, and there are just enough children in the river camp to have excitement in the air. Although attempts were made to let Lori bow out of the planning for the kids due to losing Carl, there’s a part of her that can’t just hide out in grief. Watching the youngsters trying to figure out costumes is honestly the highlight of her week.

“Miss Lori!” Eliza is practically dancing in place. “You know how to sew, right?”

Glancing at Miranda, who is patiently stitching some sort of dragon themed outfit together for Louis that will double as a Halloween costume and winter pajamas, Lori nods at the girl. “I’m not as good as your mother, but I can manage a few things.”

“Would you help me? I can sew, but sometimes I need help, and Mama’s busy.”

“What kind of costume are you going to do?” Some of the children’s ideas are fanciful, like the robot she’s seen a pair of boys building out of cardboard boxes and spare spray paint. Others are useful, like Louis’s dragon. With Eliza being as pragmatic as her parents, Lori suspects hers will lean toward the latter.

The mischief in the girl’s grin should have warned Lori before she opens a box she’s carrying and pulls out a Nerf crossbow. “I want to be Daryl. Think he would get mad?”

Lori can’t help giggling. “Oh, sweetie, I think he would be confused, but he would never be mad. What do you have for the costume other than the crossbow so far?”

It turns out that the vest is the part that is worrying the girl, and Lori agrees that they don’t have the time or the skill between them to stitch in angel wings quite the way they are on Daryl’s leather vest. But the old brown shirt Eliza’s found is at least the right color, and they manage to cut white wings from an old sheet to stitch onto the back. In lieu of embroidery, they draw in the wing details with a magic marker.

Daryl’s gone that day, one of his overnight trips stuck out on the road. He goes farther now, which worries her more because it’s getting colder at night. No matter how much his rough life prepared Daryl for this world, it still worries her. However, it does make for a hilarious scene when the man in question returns on Halloween afternoon and encounters his mini-me.

Finishing the costume out by drawing on some facial scruff for the girl really did complete the image. It takes Daryl exactly five seconds to connect the dots that the costume isn’t Miranda’s doing. He’s a bit baffled when he seeks Lori out where she’s overseeing the kids making their own candy apples.

“Why in hell does the girl wanna look like me?” he inquires. The nearest kids don’t bat an eye at the language. No one bothers with correcting that sort of thing anymore, not even Lori.

“She’s known you almost since the beginning, Daryl. A little bit of hero worship isn’t surprising.”

While Lori’s settled in here easier than she expected, it’s harder for Daryl. He does whatever’s asked of him, but almost all of his free time is spent wherever she is. She suspects some of that is a general distrust he seems to have for men in general, and while he does genuinely like Miranda’s husband, there’s always a discomfort between the men in the shape of Daryl’s missing brother.

Realizing that she’s essentially his shield against the social requirements of living in a community was a unique experience for Lori. It also made her think back to the quarry, where weird as it seemed, she thinks Merle did the same. Rarely did Daryl interact with anyone, and asshole that he was, his brother did provide a pretty solid buffer for Daryl.

“It’s weird,” he mumbles, but watches as Eliza stalks and shoots her brother, cackling at her successful ‘hunt’. “Need to get her a real bow, not that silly foam shit.”

“Ask her parents. I don’t think they would say no, if you can find some small enough. Might be others that would want lessons. Could Eliza use mine?”

“Maybe. I got yours for your height, and you’re a good eight or nine inches taller than her.” Daryl scratches at the scruff on his chin, still watching the kids running and playing with an expression of confused wonderment. “Might see if we can raid a sporting goods store. Find a variety.”

“Sounds like a plan.” This trip hadn’t turned up anything viable, either, so Lori intends to broach the subject of calling a halt to the search for a while. Having something to do here will make him more likely to agree.

“You gonna make an apple, Mister Daryl?” one of the younger kids asks, grinning up at him as she runs up to retrieve the apple she helped make earlier now that it’s cool. “We got to make apples!” 

Her flourish of the treat nearly smacks Daryl in the hip, but he sidesteps just in time. “Yeah, guess I will. Why is your apple blue? Ain’t they supposed to be red?”

Giggles and a battle with biting into the apple make Lori the one who answers. “I let each group of kids pick the color for the candy coating. Her group voted for blue instead of red.”

Daryl peers into the almost boiling pot for the next batch Lori’s doing with a frown that clears when he sees the bright red mixture. “Guess I can help. You got more kids coming?”

In answer, Lori whistles, which summons the last three kids who haven’t helped dip an apple who are old enough for the activity. They label their scraps of parchment paper with their names before dipping the apples and letting them cool while they go play. Lori hands Daryl the next apple with a grin. “Got a dozen more to serve up all the adults who asked for them.”

There are a dozen already cooling for adults, but the hard candy treat isn’t as popular with the adults as with the children. Lori’s just glad there was an orchard nearby with apples ripe at the right time. The ingredients are plentiful enough, just water, sugar, corn syrup, and food coloring.

He’s patient with coating the waiting apples, deft hands finishing the job while Lori just oversees the heat on the outdoor cooktop. “We got any of these apples left?” he asks.

Lori’s noticed Daryl’s preference for the tart Granny Smith apples. “Yeah. I saved us some extra.” Being pregnant entitles her to a larger ration than she would normally get from the general food supplies, but the apples hadn’t really been regulated. The supply run down to the orchard south of Birmingham had netted so many bushels of the Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples that the canning team was rather grateful for anyone who wanted to eat them fresh.

It’s been a long day, though, so once her particular task is done and the utensils and pot clean and put away, Lori collects her candy apple to take home. Even though she tells Daryl he’s welcome to stay behind, she isn’t really surprised when he follows her back to their RV. 

“Got something for you,” he tells her as they reach the door. 

It’s the hesitation in his voice that makes her turn before she unlatches it. “A present?”

“Sorta. If you want it. If you don’t, I can find someone who does.” The mumbling and not looking right at her is closer to how they started out than how they are now.

“I can’t imagine that,” she tells him and opens the door. Flopping on her back on the bed, she toes her shoes off, pushing them off the foot of the bed. 

The twin thumps get Daryl’s attention from where he’s fiddling with the door to the tiny bathroom. He glances over her assessingly. “You feeling okay?”

“Just a little tired,” she tells him. “Enjoying this last bit where I can see my feet, to be honest.”

His curiosity is cautious, as always, as he comes and tidies her shoes into the shelf under the edge of the bed. “You seem really small still,” he ventures, eyeing her belly.

“I was pretty small with Carl at this stage, too,” she tells him, rubbing a hand over her belly. There’s no mistaking that she’s pregnant anymore at all, but she’s not huge, either, even at twenty-three weeks. If she were really determined to hide it, she probably could for another week or two. “Baby’s about the size of an eggplant now, I think.”

Daryl makes a motion with his hands as if he’s estimating that size before nodding. “Dr. Stevens says everything’s good?”

“Everything’s good.” Everything that can be measured, anyway, but most of the things they can’t wouldn’t be fixable, so Lori’s just vowed not to fret over it.

The baby decides to show off her newest trick, one that she started while Daryl was out this week. It’s especially visible with Lori lying down, and she isn’t surprised that the hunter’s eyes widen and focus on her belly. “You want to feel her move?” she offers. He probably could have before now, since Lori’s been feeling the baby kick for weeks. But she hadn’t wanted to offer when it was harder to feel from the outside.

Blue eyes focus on her for a long moment before he comes and sits on the edge of the bed. When he hesitates to actually place his hand on her belly, Lori takes his hand and sets it against the small bump. The baby reacts as expected, kicking strongly against the light pressure.

Daryl’s got the same sort of awestruck look on his face that she remembers Rick having so long ago, except the hunter has more awe and less trepidation. Perhaps it’s a benefit of age, since she knows he’s probably a decade or more older than she is, and Rick had been barely twenty-two back then. Not being his child could help with the worry, she supposes, although nothing about his behavior indicates he isn’t slotting himself in as responsible as long as no one else is.

She’s a little surprised when the baby seems to play with Daryl for a bit, responding to slight moves he makes with his hand. “That’s not uncomfortable for you, is it?” he asks at last.

“Not at all. Later on, when she runs out of room, it might get that way.” Carl had once left bruises along her belly from kicking the edge of any surface she sat against, like tables and desks.

The shock comes when Daryl leans down to her belly. “You’re gonna be a good girl and not hurt your mama like that, aren’t you, Lil Asskicker?”

As if in reply, the baby thumps against where his thumb is resting. Whether it’s in agreement or defiance, who knows, but it makes Lori deal with a surge of pure affection for the rough man. She covers his hand with hers, smiling drowsily at him.

“You look tired,” he tells her, a light tint of red coloring his features as he blushes but doesn’t look away. “Should get some sleep.”

“I was promised a present,” she tells him, narrowing her eyes at him. “Don’t hold out on me now, Daryl Dixon.”

It surprises him into laughing, and she enjoys the sound as he edges away from the bed, going back to open the bathroom door. He mutters something too indistinct for her to hear even this close, before he leans in and retrieves something. As soon as the bathroom door clicks shut, she spies the wary cat in his arms and sits up.

“Oh my God. Where did you find it?”

Daryl squirms, looking more embarrassed than he did when he touched her belly. “Found her trapped under a porch, hiding from some dead bastard, two days ago. Gave her a bath and made sure she didn’t have no fleas.”

The small cat’s green eyes focus on Lori with the intent stare common to every feline she’s ever met. It’s a tuxedo patterned cat, such a pretty pattern of black and white that she can’t help but coo at the cat. Daryl eases the cat onto the bed in front of Lori, and when she reaches out to pet it, the cat allows it, moving closer and purring in contentment.

“She’s gorgeous.” Lori smiles up at him and realizes from Daryl’s look of relief that he may have wanted to keep the cat even more than just giving it to her.

“Think she’s gonna have kittens,” he admits, sitting back down and reaching out to pet the cat, too. “Dr. Stevens told me she would check her out tomorrow with the ultrasound to tell for sure.”

It’s hard to picture the austere physician playing veterinarian until Lori thinks about what something as sweetly unnecessary as pets means to the community. If the cat is truly pregnant, kittens would bring such joy to the kids here. “What’s her name?”

Now Daryl squirms a little. “Whatever you want to name her. She’ll learn it, since she can’t tell us her name.”

“You’ve had her for two days. You’ve been calling her something.” Arching a brow, Lori smirks at him. “Please tell me you haven’t been calling her Cat.”

“Nah.” He sighs, but gives in to the teasing with the tiniest of smiles. “Mittens.” He points at the cat’s front paws, which are perfect white mittens.

Petting the cat, Lori hides her smile behind a fall of her long hair. “Mittens it is then.” Because she’s never going to hear the cat’s name without seeing that shy smile.

“She’s got a litterbox outside, under the RV. Wanted to train her to go out there, since Dr. Stevens said you shouldn’t be around one.”

Yawning, Lori nods. There’s a vague memory of toxoplasmosis that she brushes away. Daryl’s already training the cat to use the bathroom outside, which is good, because she can’t imagine fitting a litterbox anywhere inside their tiny RV.

“You really ought to get some sleep,” Daryl says, and Lori agrees easily this time, wriggling to get under the covers. Mittens takes the movement in stride, curling up against Lori’s side like she’s claimed her spot between woman and wall. Lori has an extra quilt now, because they’re trying to conserve propane use for the RVs for when it gets truly cold. Daryl eyes the new addition and sighs. “Are you getting cold at night?”

“It’s not bad yet. The baby helps a bit.” With her torso mostly, if she’s honest. Her fingers and toes still get chilled if the temperature drops into the low forties like it’s been doing at night. It’s why she doesn’t bother to shed anything other than her jacket before bed anymore.

She’s half asleep when she feels more weight added to the bedding over her and blinks in confusion when Daryl nudges her shoulder. “Scoot over. No sense you being colder than you gotta be.”

The shock of him easing into the bed beside her chases away some of the drowsy state. They’ve slept close together before, back when he was injured, but not since then. While he might nap in the bed, he’s only done that when she’s busy. Breathing in the clean scent of him, nothing but the Irish Spring soap they have in their tiny bathroom and whatever innate scent of his own that becomes noticeable when he’s freshly showered, she rests her forehead against his shoulder, curling on her side to do so. She can feel the little cat start purring against her back, a warm little rumble of sound.

When Lori makes no more move toward being close than that single point of contact, Daryl relaxes. He doesn’t speak, but she knows he’s still awake and probably won’t sleep until she does, guarding her sleep like always since she kept him safe after the motorcycle accident. His presence works better than any sleeping pill, especially after nights of restless sleep while he’s been gone. Lulled by a contentedness she’s becoming used to with him close, she lets herself fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alas, Hershel will not get a POV in part 3, but this did get long enough that Daryl and Lori got their own chapter. Slow burn is taking on a new meaning with these two. This Daryl falls somewhere in the grey ace to demisexual spectrum, depending on how you personally want to define it, so don't expect anything even as fast paced as RBM for them.
> 
> Part 3, with a split POV between Rick and Merle, will post tomorrow.


	14. Love is Confusing, Part 3 of 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While out on search, Rick and Merle finally discuss what happened in Atlanta.

Rick thought the worst feeling of his life was the utter soul wrenching despair he felt when he escaped the hospital to find his home empty. It took him too long to take note of the small things missing, while he was overwhelmed with the two most important ones. Logic prevailed, and he remembered feeling deep in his heart that Carl and Lori would be safe, because they were with Shane.

That faith collapsed entirely when Daryl brought back his son’s bloody, tattered scraps of shirt. He knew then that nothing on this earth was worse than seeing proof of his son’s obvious demise. Even though the hunter tried to hedge, to say it could be a mistake, Rick just couldn’t imagine his luck being so perfectly pure a second time. There was no evidence of Shane, either, and his faith faltered even more. The guilty part of Rick mourned his brother more than the two little girls.

It made him useless, in the end. Glenn stepped up, him and Daryl tag teaming the rest to keep them searching even when their own existence was precarious. The young Korean having faith? That’s almost a given. It’s just part of who he is, down to his very core. He believes, and because he does, so do many of their group.

Daryl’s faith is different, an unexpected discovery that really shouldn’t be so unexpected. He still believed Merle alive and well somewhere out there. Believing that Beth and Shane could survive as long as no evidence told them otherwise just suited the man’s ability to see the strength in others.

They’d both been right, even if they hadn’t realized how much so. It sucks that Daryl’s still missing, because Rick thinks the redneck would rejoice as much as he did on seeing all four of their missing people alive and well. The fact that Merle reunited so many of them? Christ Almighty, fate has a twisted sense of humor toward Rick’s life.

The two weeks it takes Rick to pass muster with the stern Naval Commander to be considered for the search teams are the longest of his life, worse than attending police training in the first place. He almost falters at the mini boot camp he’s put through, and at times, wonders if it’s a punishment because of what he caused to happen to Merle. The older Dixon’s obvious value among these remnants of the military is more than Rick’s right now. 

It’s a fact that’s made pretty clear when he’s handed a uniform to wear when he goes out, with the single stripe the leathered old Master Sergeant told him most kids lose by the end of boot camp. He’s meant to earn his way to anything more, and the bar is set pretty high for him to prove himself.

But then the day comes where Merle claps that metal and plastic hand on Rick’s shoulder and tells him to gear up to head out the next day. Any contact he ever makes with Rick is always with the prosthetic. It’s both a punishment and a shield, he thinks, between himself and the man he left to die and returned to save a day too late.

Shane caught on that Rick is looking for answers more than hoping for any more miracles. Carl doesn’t, thank God, because the boy has a cheerful sort of faith much like Glenn’s. To Carl, his mother is one of the strongest people on the planet. She’s out there somewhere. Surprisingly, Shane agrees with Rick’s son.

It’s too bad that it can’t be shared so easily, to be contagious like the virus that tore their world apart. Rick could use a dose of it somehow. Instead, he gears up and climbs into a Humvee, part of eight people out searching on a mapped out grid planned by military survivors who specialized in logistics in a way he’ll probably never grasp. They’d been lucky there, to have a Marine Logistics Base scrape together enough survivors to put together a real plan for the future.

The nights are cold enough by the end of October that they light fires when they stop. Sometimes it’s a fireplace in an abandoned home, but just as often, it’s a Dakota fire hole dug inside some fenced off area. Their camping gear is rated for weather much colder, but that only helps when they sleep.

“Here. If you’re gonna sit up half the night, you might as well warm up a bit.” There’s a glove covered hand in front of Rick’s face, holding a mug that smells like soup instead of coffee, so he takes it. He doesn’t even need the voice to identify his benefactor, because like so much else that haunts him these days, the fingerless glove leaves metal and plastic fingertips free to view even as it covers the palm.

Sipping at the thick soup, Rick eyes the older man as he takes a seat on a fallen log dragged close to their little sunken fire. “How long will we keep searching up here?”

“Until we run out of places to search.” The statement is said with complete assurance, and not for the first time, Rick wonders just how far up the chain of command Merle actually is. He wears a Marine sergeant’s three stripes and crossed rifles on his rank patch, but Rick knows the two rockers below the rifles mean something special, and the other enlisted men call him Gunny instead of Sarge or his last name. “Doesn’t snow enough in north Georgia to really keep us from it.”

They aren’t the only search team out there, but the Commander only allows two teams of eight out at a time, rotating two back to camp. They can stay out as long as a week, canvassing an area, but they’ll spend an equal time off duty when they get back. The others on Rick’s team just shrug and say it’s the benefit of a doctor being their only surviving officer. The other team out right now is working their way up the coastline into South Carolina.

“You sure they’d head into the mountains?” It made sense when Rick first got to join the team. People return home when they’re under pressure, just like Shane ran to ground with the kids. Hershel Greene’s farm is gone, lost to the ravages of the wildfire that split up the group. No one’s returned to King County since Merle first plucked away Shane and the kids and the two Joneses before returning for Rick and his small group. 

Looking for where Daryl might herd the others is their only remaining clue. The fact that the Dixon brothers grew up across the entire mountainous region of north Georgia is just dumb fucking luck. The hunter could have taken refuge just about anywhere up here, according to Merle.

“My baby brother? He doesn’t venture to new places unless something forces him to. If you’re right that he’s the only one left who can guide the women, boy, and old man, then they’ll be up here. Problem is that he’s never stayed in one place for long.” Merle runs a hand across his face, sighing deeply. “That was my fault. Boy spent too many of his formative years and after trying to keep my sorry ass in one piece.”

It’s not the first time Merle’s sounded more paternal than fraternal in talking about his brother. Shane tells Rick he thinks it’s what fuels Merle’s determination to turn over every rock in Georgia and beyond if he has to. He’s probably right.

“He’ll be that dedicated?” Rick asks, finishing off the soup and staring into the empty mug. “To people he barely knows?”

“You gotta understand the soft spot Daryl has for people in need of help,” Merle says, rough and gravely. “Ain’t a Dixon trait, not usually. There’s been times I wonder if my late, unlamented daddy’s rants about Daryl not being his might just be right, because Mama wasn’t a whole lot sweeter than Daddy by the time Daryl came along.”

“You’re saying he stayed with us because we needed help?” Rick can actually picture that, because when he surveyed the survivors of the walker attack on the quarry camp, Daryl’s gaze was on the kids in particular. When Glenn got snatched, Daryl had been even more determined to get him back than Rick, even when it delayed any search for Merle.

“I’m saying exactly that. He figured I could survive on my own, didn’t he?”

Rick chuckles softly, remembering Daryl’s words, wringing some amusement out of the memory of standing in that room with the horrific stench of burned flesh. “He said the only thing that could kill you would be you. Then something about eating a hammer and crapping out nails.”

Merle snorts, making himself cough softly in trying not to outright laugh. “Sounds like the boy. He’s thought I was indestructible since he was old enough to know my name. Didn’t deserve the hero worship then.”

“And now?” Curiosity drives Rick to ask, because the Merle he’s been around since King County is nothing like the Merle on that rooftop. Being free of the influence of drugs can’t account for all of it.

“A smart lady told me that the best way to live up to someone believing in you like that is to man up and live up to it.”

“That all?” The amused smirk sent his way tells Rick it wasn’t.

“There was a longer speech about arrested development, perpetual adolescence, and a few repetitions of the phrase infantile egomaniac.”

“Impressive.”

“Yeah, she is.” The smile on his features now is so damned soft and gentle that it strikes Rick more profoundly than the words Merle said.

That’s when it clicks for Rick, the change that runs deeper than the older man being given responsibility and staying sober. He’s seen the same look more and more on Shane’s face the longer Princess is around. Hell, back when things were good between him and Lori, he’s seen it on his own face.

Merle Dixon is head over heels in love with someone. Who, Rick has no idea, because he’s never socialized with the man outside of what they need to do for the search teams. Maybe some of the others know, but he’s pretty sure asking won’t get him much of anywhere if they do. Merle’s forgiven him for the reason he has that prosthetic hand, but no one’s forgotten.

It’s also something Rick has never exactly apologized for. He’s attested that he went back for the man, along with Daryl, T-Dog, and Glenn. But actually apologizing? No. Shit.

“Hey, Merle?” he begins, after a good five minutes of silence as they watch the fire and the perimeter in turns.

“Yeah?” Merle’s looking off in the distance, head cocked to one side like when he’s listening to the night life for any sounds of alarm.

“What I did, leaving Atlanta and not turning back when they said you weren’t in the van? That’s not something I can really make up for, but thank you for letting me try.” Because yes, he’s out here because Lori’s maybe still out here, but Rick has more faith that Daryl’s alive than his estranged wife. “Even if we somehow find Lori without Daryl, I won’t stop looking until we know for sure.”

Rick owes the man, because he’s part of a family separated because Rick was too selfish to just turn back around for a stranded man that his cop’s instincts said was trouble in a way he wasn’t equipped to deal with anymore. The others would have bent to his will, if he’d stopped that van and insisted on a plan to retrieve Merle, especially after T-Dog chained the door. Even Andrea would have felt too guilty to keep retreating if even one person spoke up to do the right thing.

“You came back to look for me, Grimes. Ain’t something to owe me some sort of life debt over.” 

So Merle says, but Rick has to wonder. Always touching him or handing him things with the prosthetic could be a side effect of the man losing his dominant hand after fifty plus years of being right handed. Maybe it’s only Rick’s guilty conscience crawling around in his gut each time he sees it and not Merle making sure he never forgets.

“I came back an entire day later.” And deep down, can really say he would have gone back if he hadn’t dropped that bag of guns? He likes to think so, likes to think he’s the good man he’s lived his life being, but now he’ll always wonder about the quality of his own character.

“That’s more than most people would have bothered with.” Merle shrugs, and it’s such a similar behavior to Daryl’s willingness to stay and defend Rick’s family and the others that he thinks maybe it’s not just love that changed the man… but a distinct lack of it in his life aside from his brother.

“Still, I meant what I said. As long as Daryl’s missing, I’m going to be helping you look.”

Astute blue eyes study him for several heartbeats. “A’right.”

When Merle gets up to pace their perimeter, still listening intently at things only a woodsman can glean from the night, Rick feels something settle in his chest at the easy acceptance. He’s a good man who made a mistake that could have been even more horrific than it was. Somehow he’s been deemed worthy of correcting that mistake, and maybe whatever luck shined on him there will lend itself to their search.

Lori came from people just like the Dixons, and he’s been spending his time remembering the housewife and mother, not the bold little spitfire he met at college. Just because she bent to his world doesn’t mean she’s forgotten where she came from. Daryl’s brother believes in the younger man’s innate ability to overcome anything. 

Rick is going to start believing the same of Lori.

~*~*~*~

If anyone had told Merle a year ago that he would be back in uniform for any reason, he would have laughed his ass off and told them that prison jumpsuits aren’t uniforms. It’s the closest he’s come to a uniform since he punched that shitbird NCO back when he was about up for reenlistment. Sixteen months in military prison taught him little that was good, other than how to rise to the top in any state or county facility.

Technically, his rank isn’t legit, not in the old world way. He supposes with the world going to complete and utter shit, his dishonorable discharge would have been tossed in order to have more cannon fodder if he’d volunteered. But at his age and with his checkered criminal record? Odds are he’d have been lucky to have been trusted with that much.

Instead, he gets his sorry ass in a jam even Dixon ingenuity couldn’t get him out of, because there’s no pride in the fact that he sawed off his own damn hand when a thumb would have gotten him out of those cuffs. Feverish and infected, he managed to get out of the city, only to stumble right into the waiting arms of a fucking Marine fireteam. The week that it took to get him lucid and off death’s door meant he lost track of his brother entirely.

He still thinks the Commander and that rat bastard of a Master Sergeant of hers are a little bit batshit, handing him actual control. Worse yet, after his third foray into the field and saving two of his men, they went and promoted his ass from his last legitimate Marine rank. It would make more sense if he’d bullshitted them both, but he hasn’t held back one solitary thing from how he’s spent the years between twenty-three and fifty-two.

Damn Master Sergeant just laughed his ass off and said that’s the sort of Marine needed right now, providing he can follow orders. Then the asshole made sure he either outranked or was equal rank to every surviving NCO they have except himself. Commander just smiled that sly fox smile of hers and signed off on it. There might even be some remote regulation that allows all of it, based on something archaic they could drag up for the end of the world.

Because it’s not legit like it is for the rest of the Marines here, Merle can technically hand his uniform at any time. He’s never been further from wanting to do so in his entire life. Thirty four Marines and one Naval officer survived the collapse of the Marine base at Albany. Merle’s proud to serve with every damn one of them. Thing is, he can’t picture Commander Barrett ever issuing an order he feels the need to disobey, and his loyalty, once given, is pretty damn unshakable.

The thing about him wearing that gunnery sergeant rank is that Merle might not remember if there are provisions to reenlist a man such as himself legally, or even field promote him up two ranks from his last, but he does remember quite clearly one thing about rank. Where he is right now would be a crime, back when there were officers around more senior than the one they have here. 

It’s not just that she saved his life. That got her his initial loyalty. Observing her leadership priorities cemented it into place. Spending time with her without her ever comparing where their extensive literature backgrounds come from? That got him fucking intrigued, and it should have been a schoolboy’s crush, ignored by the widowed Navy doctor.

It wasn’t ignored. Jesus Christ he’s glad of that as he steps into their bedroom, and she smiles up at him over those dark rimmed glasses of hers, brown eyes studying him with interest. She hasn’t bowed to the whims of vanity and dyed her hair since it started going gray back in her early thirties, joking that being a wife and mother on top of being a military physician gave her more gray than even a professional stylist could conquer.

“You are gonna get eaten by paperwork one day,” Merle tells her, reaching over her shoulders to gently tug her pen from her hand. He lays it on the notebook she’s using to make her own little cheat sheet. “And you don’t have to become an engineer. You have people for that here.”

Cass sighs, but cedes his point by taking her reading glasses off and laying them on the notebook as well. “I don’t think engineer is possible at my age, but I do like to do more than smile and nod when the technicians are explaining how they want to reinforce our electrical grid, you know.”

“Yeah, I do, and I bet all you do is study when I’m out in the field, once the grandkids are off to bed.” Asshole Merle would laugh himself stupid knowing he’s shacked up with a woman not only four years older than himself, but a grandmother twice times over. 

The grandkids are underfoot, too, thanks to one son being out on a damned Naval ship, fate unknown, and the other didn’t make it to Georgia from Portland when everything started shutting down. It’s just a quirk of immense luck that Cass the two grandkids were flown off to grandma’s hopefully secure military base as soon as the virus started making the news. Merle wishes like hell the parents had gotten their asses on that same plane instead of staying behind to finish up obligations in Oregon. At least she has one daughter-in-law safe and sound - and eight months pregnant.

She shrugs, standing to slip her arms around his waist and kiss him softly. “At least you know I’m taking a break when you are, right?”

“There is that.” He just enjoys the closeness, all the soft femininity that she hides away the second she puts on her uniform to keep this place running. “How’s Jade feeling?”

“Like a beached whale. I keep expecting a countdown to delivery in the kitchen any day now.” 

Merle can’t say he blames the girl. Being pregnant wasn’t exactly a picnic even when the world was nice and she was going to be part of a two parent team raising the baby. But at least once the baby’s born, she can at least see it was all worth it.

“Maybe she’ll get lucky and the kid will be early instead of late.”

Cass scoffs as he leads her away to bed. “First babies rarely are when you want them to be.” She smiles though, curling up against his shoulder. “It’ll be nice, though, to have a little boy around again.”

Thinking of the two little granddaughters tucked away in their room, one barely walking and the other just big enough to attend preschool now that the community numbers have grown, Merle thinks girls are just fine. But he can also understand how much Cass misses her sons, and she may never get closure. It’s something Merle knows could happen to him about Daryl, too, but at least finding his brother is geographically possible. Oregon is an almost impossible idea now, and a Naval ship in the Pacific might as well be the moon, if they even managed to keep the virus and the dead off the thing.

“Maybe he’ll be a turkey day baby. Then Jade can dress him in little turkey suits every year for his birthday until he’s big enough to escape all the cute.”

It earns Merle a laugh, even though he thinks that sort of thing is damned silly and shit people with too much money obsessed with doing to their kids. Money’s not a dividing line anymore, and if it makes that poor sad kid barely in her twenties grin, Merle will make the damned turkey suits himself.

“I’m glad you’re home,” Cass mumbles, half-asleep already. “It’s not the same when you aren’t here. Love you.”

Merle agrees, because maybe this thing between them is less than eight weeks old, but neither of them are young or dumb enough to waste any time anymore. It took him fifty-two years to stop shooting his own self in the foot when it came to romance, and he’s happy to be where he is. “Love you, too, Cass.”

He’s loyal to a fault when it comes to someone who finally sees value in him and puts it to good use. But when it comes to Cassidy, as opposed to prim Commander Barrett? Merle knows he’d burn the world at her whim, fraternization be damned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never tackled the Rooftop from Rick's POV, and thought it fit well to do it here. This Merle has moved beyond what happened, but the way he and Daryl accept it in the show? It just shows you just how abused both men were that it wasn't an unforgivable event for them.
> 
> When I initially watched the show (rewatching it is worse), it absolutely horrified me that they all knew they left Merle behind (except Glenn), yet kept driving and made no plan for rescue. They got to sit around, eat a meal, enjoy an evening (and Rick even got laid)... Having left a man to die of sunstroke or potentially eaten by walkers. None of their behavior is that of good people (and I include Dale and Shane, both of who were leaders enough to arrange a rescue, and Dale even puts a price on loaning out his bolt cutters.)


End file.
